
Class LJ^ llZ , 



PRKSENTCl) BY 



CHILD 
BEHAVIOR 



A CRITICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF 

YOUNG CHILDREN BY THE METHOD 

OF CONDITIONED REFLEXES 



BY 

FLORENCE MATEER, A.M. 

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Clark University, Worcester, 
Mass., in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy, and accepted on the recommen- 
dation of William H. Burnham 



CHILD 
BEHAVIOR 



A CRITICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF 

YOUNG CHILDREN BY THE METHOD 

OF CONDITIONED REFLEXES 



BY 

FLORENCE MATEER, A.M. 

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Clark University, Worcester, 
Mass., in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy, and accepted on the recommen- 
dation of William H, Burnham 



^¥6 




BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



COPYEIGHT, 1918, BY RiCHARD G. BaDGER 

All Rights Reserved ^ ,^ \ 



YA^I-' 



Gilt ^ 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGB 

Introduction 7 

I Historical Survey of Child Study . . 13 

II Methods and Results of Child Study . . 82 

III Behaviorism and Child Psychology . . 53 

IV The Experiments of Krasnogorski . . 73 

V Methodology and Technique Modified 

FROM Krasnogorski . . . . .94 

VI Preliminary Experiments and their Indi- 
cations . . . . . . .113 

VII A Quantitative Study of the Conditioned 

Reflex . . . . . . .137 

VIII Conclusions 196 

Curves Illustrating the Development of 
Conditioned Reflexes .... 209 

Selected Records from Other Cases . .215 

Bibliography 219 



INTRODUCTION 

"Child Study" is a term so well-worn and s dely 
used that its application and meaning in any one in- 
stance consequently needs definition. Studies are made 
of the growth of the child, his games, his vor bulary, 
his mental activities, and they are all legitimate 
branches of child study, somewhat overlapping, it is 
true, and all of them far more fragmentary than 
complete. 

One of the lines along which a great deal of work has 
been done is that of the mental activities of the child 
or on what might justly be called child psychology. 
This division is recognized from the standpoint of psy- 
chology itself and is again given varied connotations 
as it deals with different features of the subject. All 
of these subdivisions have, however, one thing in com- 
mon. They treat of the growing organism as con- 
trasted with the predominantly functioning organism 
of the adult. Bearing this characteristic in mind, child 
psychology may be justly said to include the study of 
all the stages of the intellectual development of the 
organism previous to the stage of complete maturity of 
mind. Usage has rather clearly discriminated for us, 
however, three main divisions in this long period of 
development. These are usually studied separately, al- 
though not without relating the findings of any one 
period to those of the others. 

The most widely known and best developed of these 
three divisions of child psychology is educational psy- 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION 

chology or psychology as it applies to the child of 
school age and consequently to his education. Partly 
overlapping this but separated from it by the rift of 
enormous physiological changes is the psychology of 
the adolescent. In its turn the study of the mind of 
the adolescent can be separated from the study of the 
mind of the adult only by rather artificial discrimina- 
tions. 

On the other extreme of the age-limits of childhood 
we have the child of the pre-school age. Here the term 
"Child Study" is generally used whether or no the prob- 
lem attacked is a psychological one. In view of the 
tremendous development of intellect that occurs in this 
period and considering the large number of studies of 
such development that have already been made, it seems 
logical to use the term "Psychology" in distinguishing 
these studies from investigations dealing with physical 
development, social reactions, and sense functioning, 
despite the fact that there are necessary correlations 
which must be considered. 

But psychology must itself be defined. Shall the 
term be used to designate any type of study which de- 
scribes the child's mental processes through observation, 
analogy, interpretation, and experimentation or shall 
the usage be more limited? In so far as one wishes to 
be scientifically accurate and in accord with the ac- 
cepted meaning of to-day the term should be used only 
to indicate the report of observations made under con- 
trolled conditions which are such that the experiments 
may be repeated and the results verified by any com- 
petent person at any future time. 

Even so the term "Psychology" has a connotation 
which is very apt to be misleading when applied to the 
study of young children. Psychology deals with mental 



INTRODUCTION 9 

processes, with images, ideas and judgments. These 
the young child can not report to us, nor can we study 
them directly in their functioning in him, but only 
through inference, deduction and analogy. Results 
obtained thus are not scientific in the sense of the 
natural sciences. The animal psychologists have met 
and conquered this same situation and now study the 
behavior of their subjects without dependence upon the 
assumption of such and such subjective processes. 
They are content to ascertain the exact relations ex- 
isting between stimulus and reaction. It seems fairly 
logical that those wishing to enroll the study of the 
young child among the sciences should take the same 
step, should be content to study his behavior. Of course 
in its wider meaning this would include all the activi- 
ties of the child but in a stricter sense we may use it 
to mean the study of more or less complex reaction 
to definitely ascertained stimuli. 

The term "Child Behavior" will therefore be used in 
this discussion to indicate the observations of and the 
experimentations upon the mental processes of children 
under school age, as expressed in their behavior or re- 
action to stimuli and ascertained under conditions per- 
mitting repetition and verification. But the value of 
any such study will be greatly increased if several ad- 
ditional factors are taken into consideration. The 
problem on learning, memory, language, or anything 
else will be far more valuable if it is studied in connec- 
tion with full recognition and evaluation of the physi- 
cal organism, the environmental conditions, and the 
past experiences of the child. Also, the problem under- 
taken, whatever it is, should be correlated with and 
compared with similar studies on older children. 

Moreover, if we are attempting to formulate a basis 



10 INTRODUCTION 

for a science of Child Behavior, there are a few ques- 
tions we should ask before undertaking any specific 
investigation. The answers to these questions will un- 
doubtedly indicate the most probable lines of profitable 
work. The questions are the following. What work 
has been done and what results have been obtained re- 
garding the mental development of the young child.'' 
To what extent do these investigations fail and what 
are the reasons for their errors .f* What improvements 
in technique, apparatus and method can be made in the 
new work to be done? 

Then, when a piece of research has been completed, 
the results should be evaluated not only from the stand- 
point of the absolute findings but also from the stand- 
point of their interpretation, their significance for 
science in general and, in this age of applied values, 
from the standpoint of their use. Also, every problem 
should give, as a result of its being intimately known 
through experience, suggestions for modifications of 
use in future experiments and also suggestions for new 
but correlated investigations. 

Let us here attack these problems in the order men- 
tioned, trying to explain more fully by example just 
what is meant. First, in order to avoid duplication and 
to avail ourselves of the best that the experience of 
past experimenters has to offer we must survey the 
results so far obtained by those studying the young 
child. These results will be found in the various books 
on "Child Study." 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 

CHAPTER I 
HISTORICAL SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 

IT would be interesting to trace the evolution of the 
place the child has played in human thought and 
plans since the earliest days of recorded events but 
that would lie a little aside from the main purpose of 
this discussion. 

All we can do here is indicate the more important 
factors in the development of child study and see how 
they give rise to child psychology as a separate line of 
research and theory. 
* The place of the child was ideal in the days of Hellas ; 
statesmen, philosophers and citizens in general were 
devoted to his interests and gave of their best to his 
training. To them this appeared as but natural since 
he was the future State and only through giving him 
the most perfect preparation would the future State 
be as mighty as possible. Schools were pleasant places 
and the lessons of the Greek boy would seem play to 
the present-day child, but one great principle appears 
to have been disregarded. The boy was trained as a 
part of the group, the goal to be reached subserved 
the purpose of the group and the child as an individual 
was unrecognized. 

13 



14 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

A With Christianity the child sank into obscurity. The 
same faith which elevated one child to Divinity made 
all other children sinful in their very nature and the 
Dark Ages could from the standpoint of the child have 
had no other cognomen. The stress was everywhere 
other-worldly, although this gradually changed as the 
Renaissance dawned and glimpses of brighter things 
may be seen. 

^ The first ray of light which we can point out ob- 
jectively as indicating the advent of a better day is 
the appearance of the Orbis Pictis of Comenius in 
1658. This first picture book for children shows us 
several things. The child is coming once more into the 
focus of attention and he is regarded as a creature 
having some interests peculiar to himself which must 
be met in a way adapted to him. The stern necessity 
of making him an honorable and righteous man is now 
seen to be not incompatible with making him more 
happy as a child. Perhaps we might appear to be de- 
ducing too much from the advent of this book were it 
not that the same spirit is reflected throughout all the 
rest of the writings of Comenius, while the little book's 
immediate use and popularity throughout Europe 
seem to indicate that the people were ready for it. 
Nevertheless, another hundred years elapses before we 
find a generalized and definite expression of the rights 
of the child. This we owe to Rousseau. 

With the appearance of the Emile in 1762 we have 
the beginnings of real child-study, both theoretical, 
educational and observational. We can do no better 
than let the author speak for himself. In the preface 
to the Emile he writes: "It (the Emile) was begun to 
give pleasure to a good mother who thinks for her- 
self . , . We know nothing of childhood; and with 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 15 

our mistaken notions the further we advance the further 
we go astray. The wisest writers devote themselves 
to what a man ought to know, without asking what a 
child is capable of learning. They are always looking 
for the man in the child, without considering what he 
is before he becomes a man. It is to this study that I 
have chiefly devoted myself. ... I may be greatly 
mistaken as to what ought to be done, but I think I 
have clearly perceived the material which is to be 
worked upon." (145, p. 1.) 

' Rousseau's estimation of his own work may be ac- 
cepted to-day. Education according to his plan, elimi- 
nating the natural social relations and demanding a 
laborious trial and error method of finding knowledge, 
may appear very far from ideal but the demand that 
the child be allowed free activity from the time of birth, 
with careful consideration and individual study; the 
insistence upon the fact that the child has certain 
rights of his own; the keen observations of child na- 
ture; all show that he indeed had grasped the signifi- 
cant features of the situation and recognized in the 
study of the child himself the solution of the problems 
of the child and of the future man. We might trace 
his influence upon human thought from that day to this 
but we must here narrow our study to tracing only the 
written records of the more influential students of the 
child since the time of Rousseau. 

" The earliest records of observations of the develop- 
ment of young children are probably those made by 
Pestalozzi (134) during the year 1774 upon his little 
son who was then just three and a half years old. They 
are not primarily psychological but a homely diary 
of the father's attempts at educating the child, inter- 
spersed with keen observations regarding his develop- 



16 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ment mentally. It is significant that although Pesta- 
lozzi thought too little of it to publish it, this frag- 
ment of observations contains much that would be con- 
sidered praiseworthy to-day. It is the humane, per- 
sonalized document of a man who wrote not as an ab- 
stract scientist but as one who knew people and who 
loved children. But, just as Pestalozzi was interested 
primarily in the tendencies and abilities of children in 
general in order to better formulate, upon them as a 
basis, his principles of education, so here, also, the ob- 
servations in themselves are only a means to an end. 
We must not forget that to Pestalozzi the child was 
merely the immature and future man. To quote Heu- 
baum, "Pestalozzi had not grasped the truth that the 
age of childhood had significance and value in and for 
itself, that it carries its end and purpose in itself" 
(78, p. 366). 

And so Dietrich Tiedemann (174) is the real founder 
of child study. His observations of the development 
of his son appeared in 1787. They are purely psy- 
chological and reflect the empirical attitude of the 
times. Tiedemann deplores the fact that there are not 
more studies of these early manifestations of the de- 
velopment of the mental abilities because through such 
studies that part of the theory of the soul which studies 
the development of the various mental abilities in man 
would be considerably advanced and hence it would 
further pedagogy which is necessarily based upon it. 
The study, despite its excellence, attracted very little 
attention, sank into oblivion, and was not rescued until 
Michelan published a French translation of it in the 
Journal general de Vmstruction piMique in 1863. 

Tiedemann's "Die vier erste Jahre meiner Kinder" 
(175) does not seem to have been any more influential 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 17 

until it, also, was re-published in the same journal, 
the same year. 

Froebel's "Die Menschenerziehung" (49) appeared 
in 1826. This, again, is the work of one who studies 
the young child motivated by the desire to obtain a 
factual basis for the development of a system of edu- 
cation. His observations are a mixture of empiricism 
and philosophical inferences. One new step he takes 
is of special significance from our standpoint. He 
points out that the child, the boy, the youth are not 
distinct stages but that they are continuous and that 
transitions are unbroken. Hence he speaks of "man in 
the period of earliest childhood." 

In the same year Schleiermacher was expressing his 
views on childhood and education in his lectures at the 
University of Berlin. To him we owe the first com- 
plete formulation of the modern or Rousselian attitude 
towards the child which, in spite of the influence that 
his lectures must have had, develops very slowly aside 
from the secondary consideration that it receives in 
educational theory. Too much credit can hardly be 
given to the man who formulated the theory that "just 
as each period of Hfe is for itself a natural division of 
life and has its own definite character: so, also, should 
each of these periods be enjoyed in its own specific 
character and not be regarded simply as a means to a 
later period" (147, p. 317). 

The immediate followers of Schleiermacher do not 
seem to profit by, nor to even be cognizant of, the im- 
mense advance which his attitude indicates. 

In 18S8 Mme. Necker de Saussure published the first 
volume of her "Education Progressive" (1^1) in which 
she treats of the first four years of life. The second 
volume appeared in 1832 and carries the child beyond 



18 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

the age with which we are concerned here. Mme. 
Necker's observations of the development of mental 
abilities in young children are extremely fascinating, 
being filled with the spirit of one who wrote with an 
understanding of her subject matter, and they de- 
serve wider recognition than they have received in this 
country. But, although the observations she records 
are fairly accurate, they are not made from the stand- 
point of a study of the child for the child's sake. Her 
self-confessed motive is a book on Christian education, 
the "constantly progressing education," not completed 
in this life. Her study of the child is primarily to 
obtain information as to which of the moral faculties 
develops first and what the order is of those that fol- 
low. The child is only the future man as man himself 
is but a transient here, preparing for the spiritual life 
to come. 

Throughout this period, and even preceding it we 
find biographies and autobiographies which are literary 
rather than truthful, fanciful rather than practical. 
They are often rated among the books on child study 
but to place them there is rather dangerous unless one 
realizes that they are a type in themselves. A good 
illustration of this tendency which shows by contrast 
with these other early studies how long-distanced the 
method is and how much less valuable and effective from 
the scientific standpoint is Goltz' "Buch der Kindheit 
(Selbstbiographie)" (64). This has been widely read 
by German parents and yet it is not scientific or even 
methodical in its treatment. This book appeared in 
1847. 

In 1851 Lobisch's work, "Die Entwicklungs- 
geschichte der Seele des Kindes" (106), appeared. 
This book seems to have had great influence if we may 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 19 

judge by the number of times we find it quoted. 
Lobisch was a physician specializing on children's dis- 
eases and probably in many ways one of the earliest 
psychoclinicians. 

The next significant publication was Sigismund's 
"Kind und Welt" (159). It appeared in 1856 and is 
one of the most delightful and suggestive books ever 
written on this subject. Studying his own child from 
birth through the periods of development of laughing, 
sitting, walking, and talking, Sigismund also compares 
its development with that of other children among his 
acquaintances. He gives the first suggestion of a 
genetic attitude and is not concerned as almost all 
before him have been, with educational applications. 
He touches upon the manifold topics of sensory and 
motor development while his observations regarding 
language and affective development are very creditable. 

Hey f elder's (79) work, which is valuable chiefly be- 
cause of his observations upon speech, appeared during 
the next two years. This is the first of the articles 
which tend more or less completely to select some one 
form of mental activity as their subject matter. 

To Kussmaul (102) writing in 1859 we owe the first 
application of the extensive method to child study. 
Limiting himself to the study of the newly-born infant 
he makes the first generalized statements of mental de- 
velopment in young children that are based upon ob- 
servations upon a number of cases. 

From this time on the development of child study is 
much more rapid and the number of contributions be- 
comes within a few years so voluminous that a complete 
bibliography of them, without any annotations, would 
far exceed this volume in size. 

In 1869 the Berlin Padagogische Verein issued a bul- 



20 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

letin urging teachers to study the children entering 
school in order to ascertain their range of ideas and 
thus glimpse their individuality and range of experi- 
ence. In spite of lack of enthusiasm and, in many in- 
stances, the inability to make competent reports, the 
results obtained were most illuminating and valuable. 
They showed the appalling lack of knowledge concern- 
ing things children were supposed to have grasped just 
because they were within range of observation. Indi- 
vidual differences were markedly shown, imitation was 
found to influence the group answers and yet the com- 
plexity and fascination of the findings reported by Bar- 
tholomai and Schwabe (9) were undoubtedly effective 
in stimulating further study of the child as he is be- 
fore coming under school influences. 

The work of Bartholomai and Schwabe was followed 
by that of Lange (103) in 1879 and the influence ex- 
tended to America by the similar study made by G. 
Stanley Hall on Boston children in 1880 (70). This 
was the first systematic study of the mind of the child 
made in America. Similar work has since been done 
by Netschajeff (122) in Petrograd. 

In 1873 Genzmer (54) published his verification of 
Kussmaul's study and this was followed in 1882 by 
Kroner's (101) work on the same subject. This phy- 
sio-psychological study of the sensory development of 
the young child has become one of the most frequently 
pursued branches of child study. Several illustrations 
will suffice to show the height of this development. The 
recent work of Canestrini (26) is noteworthy. He 
not only uses an objective method but studies a large 
group, seventy, of children under both waking and 
sleeping conditions, with due regard for any change in 
the conditions of environment or in the child's physical 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 21 

or emotional state. 

Perhaps an even more careful study in an allied field, 
developed out of this, is that of Benedict and Talbot 
upon the "Physiology of the New-Born Infant" (11). 
They have studied the metabolism of one hundred new- 
born babies and have carried out their work in such 
careful detail that they can suggest certain procedures 
for the conservation of energy and supplemental feed- 
ing during the first week of life. 

Taine's (169) brief note upon the acquisition of 
language in children and in the race is of interest for 
several reasons. It voices the genetic attitude and at 
the same time, since it comes to us from France, shows 
that Germany and Austria are not alone in progress 
in their new interest in the child. Moreover, this ap- 
peared in 1876 and a part of it was translated and 
published in the English journal Mind the next 
year. Darwin's "Biographical Sketch of an Infant" 
(34) appeared in the next number of the same maga- 
zine, its publication stimulated as he himself tells us 
by reading Taine's article. Written thirty-seven 
years before it was nevertheless, despite the delay, the 
first published product of English child study. This 
shows how little known and valued the earlier conti- 
nental writers must have been among their British 
neighbors. 

But bigger, more suggestive studies were soon to 
appear. In 1878 Perez published his book entitled 
"Le trois premieres annees de 1' enfant" (132). The 
results of careful study are here combined with the 
logical, brilliant style of the French writer. Perez, 
while conforming to all rules for "scientific" writing 
of his time, yet gives such a fascinating study that 
the rapid demand for new editions of this book does not 



22 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

seem remarkable. 

He, first, seems to have felt the need of extending 
such observations over the whole of the pre-school 
period and so continues his study under the title 
"L'Enfant de trois a sept ans" (183). This is not 
quite as interesting as his first volume and has decid- 
edly more of a pedagogical tendency but is worth not- 
ing because of its historical primacy in this field. 

Meanwhile another contributor has appeared, one 
who usually, because of his greater value, has so over- 
shadowed Perez that the priority of the latter and his 
consequent influence upon the time are overlooked. This 
is Preyer. In 1880 he published an article on Psycho- 
genesis (140) which reveals him as an ardent evolu- 
tionist and consequently we can anticipate the treat- 
ment of his "Die Seele des Kindes" (141). He studies 
his own child from birth on and besides observation in- 
troduces a new element, experiments. These controlled 
experiences allow of variation at will. Especially note- 
worthy, although begun at a rather late age, are his 
experiments upon color to which he was probably stim- 
ulated by Allen's study of the color sense (1). 

From this time on not only books but magazine 
articles upon child study and especially upon the child 
mind are so numerous that the detailed study of the 
development in any one country, or of any one line of 
investigation, would in itself necessitate extensive treat- 
ment. It seems more fitting here to indicate the high 
points in the chief branches of the many trends we 
find developing out of this period. Several of these 
have already been indicated. 

Let us first survey the work in individual countries 
briefly. 

In Germany Preyer continued to be the leading 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 23 

authority for some time, interspersing his articles on 
the psychology of the child with work on the physi- 
ology of the embryo with especial consideration of the 
manifestations of life before birth (142). However 
we find him still writing in 1897 on the subject which 
was so well developed in his earlier work, that is on 
color discrimination (143). 

The work of Ploss must not pass unmentioned. He 
has achieved one of those marvelous compilations which 
seem to need the German's plodding and indefatigable 
application. Ploss gives us the first study of the so- 
cial customs built up around and influencing the child 
from the day he is born (136, 137). 

The work of Vierordt (180, 181) must be men- 
tioned, too. Although it is purely anatomical and 
physiological in both its subject matter and aims, it 
is the symbol of the great development of anthropo- 
logical studies wliich give us the broader aspects of 
child study though they do not contribute directly to 
the psychology of the child. 

Since then Ufer, Ament, Meumann and Stem have 
done the most significant work. 

Ufer has not only written much himself but has 
also translated into German a considerable amount on 
this subject. Ament has been interested especially in 
child speech and in the history and development of 
child psychology in general. It would hardly be com- 
mensurate with the object of this sketch to attempt 
here, in a form which would necessarily be brief, any 
statement of the development which he has handled so 
well in his "Forts chritte der Kinder seelenkunde 1895- 
1903" (4). 

Meumann, too, has contributed considerable to the 
upper end of this fore-school period but his aims are 



24< CHILD BEHAVIOR 

more pedagogical. 

Stern is undoubtedly the most important, most sig- 
nificant, as well as most voluminous German writer in 
this field — Gutberlet (69) calls him the greatest of all 
child psychologists of the present day. 

The more recent writings, especially magazine con- 
tributions, indicate new workers who will probably 
supersede those just mentioned but whose work is not 
yet very well tested by time. Among these we may 
mention Dix (38), Schmidt (148), Buchner (21), Scu- 
pin (150), DyrofF (41) and especially Groos (66), 
while the careful, critical discussion of the psychology 
of development in Ruttmann's (146) survey of modern 
psychology is the most scientific and comprehensive 
summary so far available, altho it deals somewhat too 
exclusively with German contributions. 

In Belgium the work has been confined to children 
of school age and the problems studied have been peda- 
gogical in their formulation. 

In France Perez continued writing up until his 
death but his discussions gradually became more philo- 
sophical and less based upon observation. Compayre's 
"L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de I'enfant" (32) 
has supplanted Perez's work and is the most recent 
French publication which is general and comprehensive * 
in its treatment. 

Mere reference to the many valuable volumes of 
UAnnee Fsychologique will show the varied interests 
developed in this subject by Perez's countrymen. Binet 
and his collaborators, especially Henri and Simon, have 
accomplished much although nowhere do we find the 
same type of work as among the Germans. The French 
write brilliantly and convincingly but their technique 
is apt to be at fault. They seem to hit intuitively upon 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 25 

right premises and conclusions, although their data 
may be unconvincing or scanty. The German work is 
more stolid, more convincing in its facts but less in- 
spiring in application. 

Among the lesser French writers of to-day we should 
perhaps mention Vaschide, Bouquet (18), Boutan (19) 
and Cramaussel (33). 

The work on Child Study in Italy began with Luigi 
Ferri. Interested in the work of Darwin and Taine, 
he began studying a young child in regard to the de- 
velopment of sense perception, attention, speech, imi- 
tation, etc. His first results were published in 1879 
(45) and were followed by others on the same child 
(46, 47). His work raises in its discussion some inter- 
esting philosophical questions. 

Ottolenghi (125) studied skin sensitivity but largely 
on older children. Garbini seems to have done the most 
original and systematic of the Italian work. He 
studied the voice of the child (50), changes in its pitch, 
vibration frequency and duration of cries and he re- 
cords the ages at which changes occur. He also did 
intensive work on development of the color sense (51), 
working on 557 children ranging from the new-born 
up to those 60 months of age. His work (52) on de- 
velopment of the olfactory sense on 10 new-bom in- 
fants and 415 children between the ages of three and 
six is equally valuable. Garbini is undoubtedly an ex- 
ception among those who have studied children. His 
work is thoroughly scientific and objective in method. 

One other Italian writer needs special recognition 
and that is Paola Lombroso. Besides some original 
work on the instinct of conservation in children (109) 
she has written a historical and critical account of the 
work done by her fellow countrymen along the lines of 



26 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

child study (108). The Italians have not so far pro- 
duced any one study covering the whole period of child- 
hood, Lombroso's book (107), which attempts this, be- 
ing rather incomplete along some lines and quite lim- 
ited in scope. 

Russian literati re is in general so little accessible 
that it is almost impossible to tell what has been ac- 
complished in that country. Several names must be 
mentioned, though. NetschajefF has written quite a 
little in German magazines and has since 1904 had an 
institute for Paidology in Petrograd. Sikorskij is 
perhaps better known. The most recent of his writings 
is his "Die Seele des Kindes" (160) published in 1902. 
This has passed through three Russian editions but 
owing to lack of translation of the third edition it is 
impossible to state whether there are or are not new 
contributions in it. The many changes in and addi- 
tions to the second edition lead one to feel that the 
author is still working towards, rather than resting on, 
an ideal study. 

He does not, however, seem to be familiar with, at 
least he does not mention, the significance of the theo- 
ries developed by his own fellow-countrymen, Pavlov 
and his followers. 

In England there was rapid development in child 
study immediately following the publication of Dar- 
win's sketch. Pollock's (139) work on language de- 
velopment of an infant appeared in the following year 
and was followed by the work of Champney (80) and 
SuUy (166) on the same subject. With Sully this was 
the beginning of a long period of steady contribution 
to the subject and none of us needs to be reminded of 
his "Studies of Childhood" (167). 

Warner has done quite a lot to advance the methods 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 27 

of child study beginning with his ptiblication of "The 
Children: How to Study Them" (183) in 1887. How- 
ever, he aims chiefly at furthering educational methods, 
and studies especially the physical and physio-psycho- 
logical aspects of the subject. One significant attempt 
of his should be mentioned. It is a brief report (182) 
of an apparatus which he designed and used to measure 
the spontaneous movements of the hands of children 
and adults. He found that in infants probably spon- 
taneous movements "can be arrested by light and also 
by sound" (p. 162). He outlines a method for study- 
ing the character of the modification and reports that 
these modifications tend to occur regularly to the same 
stimuli, illustrating the statement with curves from 
his experiments. 

Drummond (39, 40) is a more recent writer of a 
rather elementary type of book intended evidently for 
the inexperienced student. This type of contribution 
is rather well illustrated in the pages of Child Studt/y 
the official journal of the British Child Study Associa- 
tion, while the magazine, The Child, is devoted to the 
social, hygienic and educational welfare of the child. 
In England this practical tendency seems to have rather 
superseded the less material interest in child study it- 
self. 

There is, however, a small but valuable body of 
studies lying partly within the limits of child psy- 
chology. For instance McDougall's "Investigation of 
the Color Sense of Two Infants" (115) not only gives 
a higher development of method but is also a valuable 
contribution showing that color development not only 
comes earlier than Baldwin found but also that it is 
readily studied. Although different in technique the 
work of Myers (ISO) and Valentine (178) is similar. 



28 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

On the whole English contributions to child study, in 
so far as it deals with the child of pre-school age, have 
been imitative rather than original and very scanty in 
number. 

The situation in America is different and appears 
more so by contrast with England. As has been indi- 
cated the movement really began with Hall's work on 
the ideas of children upon school entrance which he 
made in Boston in 1880. Several minor magazine ar- 
ticles had appeared before this. Among these were 
Holden's (82) study of the vocabulary of children, 
appearing in 1877, and Humphreys (84) on the same 
topic, published in 1880. 

But these articles excited little attention. Larger 
forces were needed to arouse the interest in child study. 
We see how Hall had started such a movement but 
before it attained its full force, which was not until 
students coming under his influence as President of 
Clark University began working in collaboration with 
him as well as independently, another influence was at 
work. The first work of Perez and then that of 
Preyer were translated and made more accessible to the 
public in general. Before the interest in these studies 
had time to wane Shinn's "Notes on the Development 
of a Child" (156) appeared and led to renewed in- 
terest in individual studies. Shinn's work although the 
first of this type of study in the United States is un- 
doubtedly still its masterpiece, especially when her later 
studies are considered in connection with it (157, 158). 

In the meantime many minor articles had appeared, 
but who to-day would recognize the names of Chaille 
(27), Calkins (25), Dewey (37), Allen (2) and Tal- 
bot (170) as authorities in this field? 

From about 1890 progress seems very diff^erent. 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 29 

Baldwin's first article on right- and left-handedness (5) 
appeared that year and was but the forerunner of his 
"Mental Development in the Child and the Race" (6), 
which is still a masterpiece of the followers of the 
genetic method. Earl Barnes began writing rather 
extensively about the same time and although educa- 
tional in his aims he has done much to encourage child 
study. 

The Pedagogical Seminary was established by 
Hall in 1891 and soon became almost synonymous as 
a title with child study contributions. Its pages are 
a history of the development of the study of the child 
by American writers. Among those interested in this 
subject we find Hall and his colleagues; Burnham, sug- 
gesting especially a scheme for classification of child 
study topics and since devoting himself more to the 
hygiene of the child, and Chamberlain, who led afield 
into the life of primitive peoples (28) but who has also 
given us a most careful study "in the light of the litera- 
ture of evolution" (29). Later we have the work of 
Tanner (172) which pays more attention to the peda- 
gogical significance of the various phases of child de- 
velopment. 

Among those studying under the group just men- 
tioned and coming under their influence many have 
made significant contributions to the study of the child 
in its physical, moral and educational aspects, while 
among those devoting themselves to child psychology we 
must mention Tracy, whose "Psychology of Childhood" 
(176) appeared in 1893, Kirkpatrick, whose work be- 
gan in 1891 (94) and who has since given us two of 
our best introductory texts (95, 96), Gesell (55), in- 
terested in the young child from the educational as- 
pect, and Patridge (127), emphasizing the study of the 



30 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

individual. 

Besides this group, originating from one center, we 
must mention a number of other authorities, Oppen- 
heim (1S4), Jacoby (87), King (93), Major (113) 
and Thorndike (173). Another group follows the im- 
pulse given by Shinn's study. Here belong the "Study 
of a Child" by Hogan (81), Hall's "The First 500 
Days of a Child's Life" (73) and Moore's "The Men- 
tal Development of a Child" (119). 

The practical side of the work for the child is seen 
in Mangold's "Problems of Child Welfare" (114), 
while an interesting sketch of the child and the history 
of his social, political and humanitarian relations, by 
Payne (130), has just appeared. 

The present tendency in the United States more than 
in any other country seems to be towards specializa- 
tion of topic and method, with a great many theoreti- 
cal as well as research contributions. The activity in 
this country resembles more nearly that of Germany 
than of any other country if we exclude the intense 
interest in "tests of intelligence" which deal usually 
with older children and wherein the French school leads. 

We must not, however, think of child study as con- 
fined to the countries mentioned. Work is evidently 
going on in almost all civilized lands, but the differ- 
ence in languages has made the results practically in- 
accessible. A report by Gilbertson (56) shows that 
the Danish Anthropological Survey has added quite a 
little to the data regarding the weight of new-born 
children and also concerning the so-called inferiority 
of first-born children. Grudzinska's (67) study of 
dolls, altho dealing largely with children of school age, 
gives us an indication of the work being done in Po- 
land, while her report (68) of the Child Study Asso- 



SURVEY OF CHILD STUDY 31 

ciation of Warsaw indicates probably valuable work 
on language, ideas of space and first esthetic impres- 
sions. 

Through Lippert (104) we find much is being done 
in Bohemia and Moravia and he reports that many of 
the colleges there give courses in child study. In Por- 
tugal we find Machado (112) has made a study of his 
child which resembles the biographical studies with- 
which Germany and France both began. No doubt 
other studies have been made and the fact that the in- 
terest in child study is almost universal is seen by the 
fact that a First American Child's Congress was held 
in Buenos Aires in July, 1916. 



CHAPTER II 
METHODS AND RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 

WE may now justly ask what are the results which 
this child study movement has accomplished so 
far as the psychology of the pre-school child is con- 
cerned. The results may be grouped under several 
heads. First there is the development of methods 
themselves and secondly there are the facts that have 
been determined. 

The subject matter of child study may include any 
and every thing that can be observed regarding the 
child's development, physically, mentally, functionally. 
The various fields of study may in general be classified 
as: 

1. Anatomical studies or those dealing entirely with 
measurement of and description of the structure of the 
child's body, such as measurements of height, cephalic 
index, etc. 

2. Physiological studies or those of the functioning 
of the child's organism. The many studies of the re- 
flexes, sleep, blood supply, digestion and motor devel- 
opment belong here. 

3. Physio-psychological or the studies of sensory de- 
velopment and discrimination, the development of mo- 
tor control and the early language functioning belong 
here. 

4. Purely psychological or studies of the develop- 
ment of memory, imagination, comprehension of lan- 

32 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 33 

guage and in general the expression of higher, more 
complex forms of thought. 

5. Observations of behavior or the activity of the 
child as expressed in games, plays and spontaneous 
occupations, often with especial regard for emotional 
expression. 

Of course two or more of these lines of observation 
may be pursued in a single study while some studies 
involve all five. All are interrelated and it is impossi- 
ble to make a study, no matter how purely physiologi- 
cal or psychological, that does not influence and at the 
same time derive help from the other phases. 

Any of these topics is a part of child psychology 
when it is dealt with from the standpoint of the signifi- 
cance of the factor as an indication of mental activity 
or as a correlative of mental activity. Anatomical 
studies may indicate growth and physiological age, 
also functional ability. In this aspect they, although 
they seem the most remote of any of these divisions 
from psychology, assume great probable significance 
if not as causative at least as correlative conditions 
of mental growth. 

The method historically first, that is the diary, indi- 
vidual or biographical method, is the one usually 
thought of first. The conditions for its practice are 
the most universal — a baby, any baby, and an observer. 
Usually the observer is one of the parents or a rela- 
tive. The method is slow and laborious, the results 
difficult of comparison and interpretation when ob- 
tained. It is impossible to record every conditioning 
factor in the environment that has led up to any re- 
corded observation, hence the standardization of con- 
ditions for verifying the finding upon other children 
is impossible. The method is valuable as a basis for 



34 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

genetic psychology and gives suggestions regarding 
the relative appearance of various mental phenomena. 
The work of Pestalozzi, Sigismund, Darwin, Perez, 
Preyer, Shinn, all illustrate this method but undoubt- 
edly the Sterns represent it at its height. A brief sum- 
mary of their views is consequently not only fitting but 
necessary. 

Stern (162) designates the period of early childhood 
as that of play while the period of 7-14 is that of dif- 
ferentiation of work and play. Another difference 
lies in the fact that the young child is under home 
and kindergarten influences which vary greatly from 
the school surroundings of the older child. The na- 
ture of the young child's existence makes for observa- 
tion of the individual over an extended period rather 
than for the observation of a great number of children. 
The pedagogue needs these studies of early childhood, 
needs to know the development of the material he works 
with. The work on the Stern children covers the first 
six years because Stern feels the need of filling in the 
big gap in our knowledge between what we know of the 
first three years, studied by so many, and school age 
which again is voluminously studied. He feels that a 
relative, especially the mother, with psychological 
training, is the best worker in this field and warns 
all others not to attempt working with the child until 
en rapport with it. He advises a study of only one 
group of developmental phenomena when one is first 
working in this field, but feels that the "picture will 
be one-sided and neglect much that is important" (162, 
p. 11). One should observe both spontaneous activi- 
ties of the child and his reactions to stimuli purposely 
presented. The minor importance of experimentation 
he states very clearly. 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 35 

"It must be mentioned that for us the experiment has 
far from the significance it has for the psychology of 
the school child and of the adult. For as our chief 
problem is the natural development of the child's men- 
tal life, we must ascribe observation of natural phe- 
nomena the chief place and avoid all which is destined 
to artificially influence and change development itself" 
(162, p. 12). Experiments are to be only casually in- 
troduced side lines to verify certain points, although 
they may be carried out on children who are not being 
continually observed, but even here care must be taken 
to not fatigue them. 

Although in theory one can distinguish experiment 
upon a child from observation of him under natural 
conditions the differentiation in any one instance is 
very difficult. The experiment in general is a presenta- 
tion of stimuli not present normally to all or most 
children of that age, but whether it is any more artifi- 
cial for the son of a psychologist to play with colored 
balls, under observation, than it is for the daughter of 
a dressmaker to amuse herself with colored patches 
when observed only enough to keep her from harm is 
a metaphysical question. The fact that a child's every 
significant act is being recorded probably means that 
he is living in as artificial an environment when com- 
pared with other children as would be introduced in 
any purely experimental study. 

In general we may say this method of prolonged in- 
dividual study is the logical one for genetic psy- 
chology; the easiest from the standpoint of obtaining 
a subject; the slowest in obtaining results; the least 
satisfactory for evaluation and comparison, and apt 
to be less valuable because of its bulk and the possi- 
bility of its becoming too much permeated with the 



S6 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

personality of the compiler. The fact that almost 
none save German writers seems to have thought of 
using this method in the last decade shows that its use- 
fulness was pathfinding, not terminal. Stern's work 
itself is largely valuable because of the experiments 
he adds. 

A far better method, that of studying the -genetic de- 
velopment of one type of mental activity, is the out- 
growth of the biographical method. We see the be- 
ginnings of this in the emphasis Heyfelder placed upon 
language development in his study and in Preyer's espe- 
cial attention to the development of color recognition. 
It is along these two lines of color and language study 
that most work of this type has been done. The mere 
definitizing a smaller field for study makes the results 
more definite, less voluminous and more readily studied. 
This method may be carried out on several children at 
the same time. In the work on language, the most 
highly developed branch of this type of study, we have 
no control of environment ' and hence there are great 
uncontrolled individual variations ; such for instance 
as the number of words in the vocabulary of children 
of the same age studied by different observers. The 
Sterns (163) have made this type of study on their 
three children. The voluminous manner in which this 
one topic is handled shows how gigantic any treatise 
of all mental phenomena of development must be if the 
study be as detailed and accurate. Meumann's "Die 
Sprache des Kindes" (116) is also to be noted here 
as it is more theoretical and gives a basis for a working 
concept of the development of language in the child. 
In other words, he is more successful in generalization. 

A great number of purely quantitative studies of 
the size of children's vocabularies have been made. 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 37 

Some are more, some less complete. Where the pro- 
gress in acquisition of words has been watched to- 
gether with a record of the total vocabulary at each 
point we have a far more valuable quantitative and 
genetic study. Grant (65) in his study of his son's 
vocabulary and its growth gives a most concise, care- 
ful treatment, using this method. The comparison with 
other studies and the bibliography he presents are also 
good. But in spite of the number of such studies we 
have as yet no accepted or standard method of gath- 
ering the data, nor have we evolved any definite stand- 
ards of the size, rate of growth, and range of the 
vocabulary of the so-called "average" child. We may 
surely ascribe this to the method which renders the task 
of gathering a great num.ber of such vocabularies an 
impossibility for any one observer, while we lack suf- 
ficient trained workers to have put fifty or a hundred 
on this problem at the same time with the same 
method. 

The study of the development of color discrimina- 
tion is far more easily pursued under experimental con- 
ditions and it is to this subject that Baldwin early de- 
voted his attention. In 1893 he published his sugges- 
tions for a new method of child study, calling the 
method by the term "dynamogenic." A full presenta- 
tion of the method, its possibiHties and the results ob- 
tained by the use of it were incorporated in his "Men- 
tal Development in the Child and the Race." Al- 
though this is chiefly an individual genetic study yet 
experiment plays a large part in furnishing data on 
the developmental processes discussed. Using the mo- 
tor response or direct reflex in its simplicity he has 
ascertained the child's reaction to a varied series of 
situations. He recommends the use of the hand move- 



38 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ment as the most satisfactory and shows that through 
it the development of relative attractiveness of two 
stimuli; relative attractiveness (or better, stimulative 
ability) of two colors, two forms, or two brightnesses ; 
the relative use of right and left hands; the develop- 
ment of imitative, voluntary and ancillary movements, 
as well as accuracy of estimation of distance may be 
studied. The method is used by the author to stud}^ 
color preference and the development of right- and left- 
handedness. 

The interest of the author is, however, not centered 
in the experiments as such but he writes, "On the whole, 
therefore, I attach very little importance to the ex- 
periments apart from their illustrative value and their 
possibly stimulating effect upon others who may care 
to extend them. For these latter reasons, however, as 
much as for the positive inferences I have drawn from 
the above, I have felt that they ought not to be un- 
recorded. Their main purpose in the progress and 
plan of this book is seen in their witness to the regu- 
larity of operation of the principle of suggestion or 
dynamogenesis" (6, p. 57). 

This method stimulated greatly the work on color 
discrimination and also that on the rise of right- or 
left-handedness. Results may be seen in the studies 
of McDougall and Valentine, already mentioned, as 
well as in those of Katz (92), but we must not forget 
that the work of Garbini on this subject is far more 
extensive and thorough, although he studied the evolu- 
tion of the color sense by experimenting upon a num- 
ber of children at different ages in preference to con- 
fining himself wholly to following its development in a 
smaller number of children. 

The method of retrospection, or the use of autobiog- 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 39 

raphies is far less satisfactory. The adult looks back 
upon his early childhood as an idealized experience. 
His attitudes,^ understanding, ideals are so different it 
would be impossible for him to give us a true picture 
of the child's attitude and ideals and thoughts. Such 
books as those of Una Hunt (85) and Pierre Loti 
(110) may give us a real insight into how adults re- 
gard their acts as children but they are not child na- 
ture naive and simple. The work of Folsom (48) al- 
though dealing with a later period of child life is a 
suggestion which may lead to better things. The day- 
book kept by his mother and the records in his own 
writings give a basis of fact from which it is not so 
easy to stray. If we could have a biographical study 
of a child and then later his independent and sponta- 
neous autobiography, if this might be done in only one 
instance, the relative value of the autobiography might 
be more readily estimated, but even then the proba- 
bilities are that its value would be for adult rather than 
child psychology, and would connect this method with 
another already in use, that of psycho-analysis. 

Psycho-analysis is not, properly speaking, a child 
study method but again a method secondarily con- 
cerned with the things that have impressed the child 
and primarily a method of investigating the undue per- 
sistence in the adult of unfortunately conditioned as- 
sociations and their emotional concomitants. By it we 
can trace the complex functionings of the adult back to 
infantile states but we cannot foretell in similar detail 
the development of such states in the child. 

The methods mentioned so far are largely individual 
in their application, but there are several others which 
are distinctly applicable to a more or less extensive 
group. Of these the questionnaire or statistical method 



40 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

has been the most widely used and with the most varied 
value in the results. Its characteristics fit it for a 
special type of study. The observations may reach 
into the tens of thousands, and come from a widely 
distributed group of observers. These are both ad- 
vantages but precautions must be observed in its usage 
or there will be disadvantages also. Unless the ques- 
tions are clear and specific the answers are apt to be 
less pertinent and hence less valuable. The question- 
naire should not be too long or the demand upon the 
observer's good-will will outlast his attention. The 
evaluation of the results must allow for the use of an 
indirect method and not stress the importance of minor 
differences. Keeping these points well in mind the 
method has certain very specific values. Hall has used 
it with especial success to gather data regarding those 
forms of individual experience which can not easily 
be experimented upon in the laboratory. Especially 
significant is his work on fear (72). It is to the 
broad vision given by such studies that his volumes 
on adolescence owe much of their seer-like qualities. 
This method is also less apt to be unreliable if the data 
gathered are objective results such as children's draw- 
ings or if they have a numerical basis such as would 
be involved in a study of height, weight or counting 
ability. 

Another method is the study of only one or two 
mental processes in a large number of children. If 
we contrast this with the biographical method we see 
that they stand at right angles to each other. The bio- 
graphical method follows the child as he ascends in 
experience. The quantitative method takes any one 
point in his ascent, cross-sections it and studies its con- 
dition not only in the exceptional children but in all 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 41 

children. One of the first pieces of work done in this 
way was that of Binet (13) on line comparison and 
number perception. This was done in 1890. Although 
his methods are very crude and the study was made 
only upon his two daughters then 32 and 52 months 
of age it is a beginning of his work which leads to two 
types of study, to a purely scientific study of the men- 
tal processes of young children, on one hand, and, on 
the other, to a standardization of processes possible 
at definite ages in order to estimate the relation of any 
one child's ability to that of the group for his age. 
These are the so-called "tests of intelligence." These 
two lines are really one and the same type of study. 
Any process that has been so thoroughly and volumi- 
nously studied that we know what ability in that line 
to expect of a child of any given age is a "standard- 
ized" process. Henceforth trying it out upon any 
given child is merely ascertaining his relation to the 
rest of the group, or in other words it is a "test." It 
will at once be seen, however, that this is true only 
under certain conditions, namely, if the original study 
has been made under controlled conditions which may 
be exactly reproduced when our individual child is 
tested. Such a method complies with the demands of 
experimental psychology and its use as a test fulfills 
the demands of applied, especially clinical, psychology. 

Many studies have combined two or more of these 
methods such as biography and slight experimentation, 
biography with statistical and comparative confirma- 
tion, questionnaire and observation, developmental and 
group experiments. The results are of varied signifi- 
cance. 

If we were to attempt the formulation of a textbook 
of the psychology of the first five or six years of life 



4S CHILD BEHAVIOR 

on the same general plan as we would formulate a text 
on adult psychology we should find some phases so un- 
touched by child study tliat all we could do would be 
to state our ignorance. In other phases the accumu- 
lated facts are so multitudinous that they would form 
whole books in themselves. This is not all due to the 
developmental and evolutionary character of child 
study material but also to the factors which largely 
influenced its development. Before evolution as a 
theory was advanced, there could be little need of 
studying the evolution of the child's mind more than 
just enough to determine when his "faculties" were suf- 
ficiently developed to make education possible and 
probable. Nor could experimental methods be used 
until experimental psychology had become a fact. Con- 
sequently the earliest work in child study was either 
the observation of his development for the purpose of 
founding on such evidence sound educational princi- 
ples, as was the avowed purpose of Tiedemann and 
Froebel, or due to the purely scientific interest of a 
group of men not dependent upon psychological meth- 
ods. This is the group with medical training, Lobisch, 
Sigismund, Kussmaul. They used the physiological 
method and although an exact knowledge of the time 
at which a child begins to show that he hears sounds 
or perceives light is less necessary for medical practice 
than for educating the child, the purely scientific in- 
terest in the child developed along these lines just be- 
cause there was a method by which these phenomena 
could be studied while the avenues of approach to men- 
tal processes themselves seemed closed or lacking. 

Consequently the studies on the development of the 
senses have been numerous and persist as a favorite 
subject for investigation in physiological psychology 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 43 

to-day, although the method used has gradually passed 
from individual observation to a statistical, experi- 
mental procedure. This is easily seen if we compare 
the work of Kussmaul with the study by Peterson and 
Rainey (135), in which they studied 1060 children 
born in the same hospital and kept under the same 
conditions for the first few days of life. Various com- 
pilations of these findings have been made such as those 
found in the work of Tracy (176), Chamberlain (29), 
Cramaussel (33), Gaupp (53) and Tanner (171). 

Besides sensory development many observations have 
been made upon the motor development of the child. 
Here again we must rely largely upon the individual 
studies. The age at which the child holds its head 
erect, sits, creeps, stands, walks, the appearance of 
tactual and distance prehension have all been minutely 
recorded by Sigismund, Preyer, Shinn and others. 
Some work on the standardization of the time at which 
these develop was done by Binet and Simon (16) in 
1904. 

The work of Dearborn (35) should be mentioned 
here. It is the study of a child's development but not 
made in the same manner as the other individual studies. 
The author keeps an objective attitude and, focusing 
especially upon the child's motor and sensory activities, 
records them day by day, keeping his comments differ- 
entiated from the actual observations. The arrange- 
ment and method give the book significant value as a 
modem scientific contribution and indicate many de- 
velopmental features that should be investigated by the 
statistical method. 

The data on memory is to be found chiefly in the 
pages of the biographical or individual studies which 
record the spontaneous utterance of recalled situations 



44 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

and the recognition of persons and places known at an 
earlier period. Lately, however, we have the adoption 
of an experimental method and an already valuable 
literature on memory as studied through the Aussage 
method. We must note especially the work of Stern 
(161, 164), while the workers with mental tests de- 
pend perhaps too much upon the use of this method 
and the method of immediate recall because of develop- 
ment of norms of memory span for auditory presenta- 
tion of digits, sentences, etc. 

Correlated with this work on the Aussage we should 
mention that of Binet (14, 15) which gives the basis 
for Stern's work although it deals largely with older 
children. 

Winch (186) made a widely extended study of ob- 
servation and report upon English school children but 
includes infant schools, and, consequently, children 
from three to seven years of age. These were picked 
to represent bright, average and dull children, in all 
giving ten of each at each age. The three-year-old 
children could not correct their first Aussage con- 
cerning the picture but older ones could. The power 
of reporting grew more rapidly than the power of ob- 
servation while the demand for production and repro- 
duction of what was seen when the picture was origi- 
nally shown did not improve the memory of it but ren- 
dered it more imperfect. The improvement in report 
is a steady one from the age of three up to seven but 
less regular above that. 

The study of Ballard (7) on memory and forgetting 
touches only the upper end of this period. The young- 
est children he studied were five years old. He used 
simple verse and tested the amount they recalled and 
the improvement in learning. He found that younger 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 45 

children improved more, and more rapidly, than older 
children but his results are open to some criticism as 
he used more difficult material and sometimes a differ- 
ent mode of presentation with older children. 

Kammel (90) tries to make use of retrospection, un- 
der partially controlled conditions. He saw the sub- 
jects himself and explained his desire to them having 
them write their earliest remembrance. After three 
months he saw them again and asked for a report of 
any earlier memories. Out of 344 pupils from 12 to 
20 years of age only four remembered any earlier event 
and only 16 changed minor details of the former rec- 
ord. He feels this method is better than the ques- 
tionnaire method used by Miles (118), Henri (77) and 
others. The results are not very enlightening from 
the standpoint of child psychology. The earliest mem- 
ory is most apt to come from the fourth year of life, 
although some come from as early a period as the 
second year. The fact remembered by the child is 
more apt to be aroused by some external situation than 
by his own person and is apt to be preserved in visual 
imagery and have a strong emotional background. 

Another line of study, that of language develop- 
ment, is also one not needing very intricate methods 
but simply careful observation. Consequently the rise 
of this part of child psychology has also been inde- 
pendent of the development of modern methods. 
Through the study of language development not only 
is the acquisition of voluntary control of the vocal or- 
gans to be observed, but the psychologist reads into it 
and studies through it the beginnings of learning or 
formation of associations. The child first learns to 
associate the spoken word with the object or action. 
Then as he learns to say the word he applies it to the 



46 . CHILD BEHAVIOR 

object himself and gradually develops the ability to 
use groups of words. Whether his understanding of 
situations grows as his use of language grows is a 
matter of speculation. The objective evidence of lan- 
guage is in itself valuable for the genetic and compara- 
tive psychologist and also for the student of anthro- 
pology and sociology but it tells us little of the po- 
tentiality of the mind behind the expressions. Such 
great individual and group variations are found, proba- 
bly due partly to environmental conditions, that the 
study of the language development is difficult enough 
without complicating it by attempting too many infer- 
ences regarding the conditions of its development. 

Most of the language studies deal with its develop- 
ment through the first three years of life. The size of 
vocabulary and consequent increase in complexity of its 
usage make any complete study above that age rather 
difficult. There are some studies that deal with one 
phase or another of speech of the period from three 
to six but nothing complete enough to bridge the gap 
entirely. With the older children, especially those just 
entering school, other cross-sectioning methods are 
used. These are usually verbal association methods 
or the methods of definition and explanation of a list 
of words such as were used by Lange, Hall, Netschajeff 
and others in studying the contents of children's minds. 
The method, consequently, does not give direct infor- 
mation regarding language usage itself but rather re- 
garding the comprehension of it and the studies have 
been largely pedagogical in their purpose. Pohlmann's 
(138) work is the best example of the application of 
this method, extending its usage on children of all 
ages up to fourteen. His work touches the fore-school 
period as it includes a study of six five- and six-year- 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 47 

old children. This number, however, is small and he 
reports such a large percentage of admissions of igno- 
rance of the words or refusals to answer that one 
doubts whether his method was applied with sufficient 
admixture of understanding of these younger children. 

One other study, that of Engelsperger and Ziegler 
(43) should be mentioned here. Motivated by the 
studies on children entering school, they attempted a 
more scientific and exact study of not only the mental 
but physical development in a group of nearly 500 
children just beginning school work. The psychologi- 
cal study, although confined to the development of the 
color sense, is very detailed. Color perception, match- 
ing and naming were studied and significant indica- 
tions of the narrowness of range of discrimination were 
found. Interesting sex differences are also indicated 
by their tables, but so far as mental processes go we 
know but little more than we did before. The study 
is one of knowledge acquired, not of processes. 

Aside from the work on memory and language and 
the study of the learning process thus involved very 
little attention has been paid to the process of acquisi- 
tion itself. There is no literature available upon which 
to base a discussion of the learning process of the in- 
fant which would be similar to and supplement that of 
Meumann (117) on school children and adults. 

The only other subject widely investigated which 
might be said to belong to child psychology is that of 
the activities of children, their games, arts and occu- 
pations. Few of these are subject to experimental 
control but we have an advantage in studying one form 
of activity which is objective in its results — this is 
drawing. A great deal has been done with the study 
of spontaneous productions of copies of objects and 



48 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

of illustrations of stories. The studies of Ricci (144), 
Elmer Brown (20) and Barnes (8) are all valuable 
although they deal less with the children under school 
age than with those of school age. They do give us 
some idea of the things present in the child's concept, 
say of a man or a chair, but tell us little of how he 
develops that concept. 

Even such a brief survey of the field convinces one 
that the number of studies made upon the mind of the 
pre-school child by the methods of experimental psy- 
chology are few. Why is this all psychology has had 
to offer here.? There are at least three definite reasons. 

The investigation of the child mind was first moti- 
vated by a desire to gather in this field facts that would 
help pedagogues. This aim naturally limited the ma- 
jority of studies to children of school age, although 
the importance of a knowledge of the child of pre- 
school age has often been emphasized but even when 
so emphasized the attitude is not purely scientific and 
has been beautifully described by Burnham, who writes 
"The prime motive for such study has generally been 
the training of teachers in the observation of children. 
It has been done directly for the sake of the teachers ; 
indirectly for the sake of the child, and incidentall}'^ 
for the sake of science" (23, p. 198). 

Another factor is the difficulty of securing any con- 
siderable number of young children who will form a 
rather unselected group. This is evidenced by the lack 
of extended studies upon the periods between earliest 
infancy, where babies are available in maternity hos- 
pitals, and the kindergarten school age which again 
brings them together in a social group. The child 
of two, three or four lives in the home, not in a large 
group of his kind. Hence each must be sought alone. 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 49 

The rise of interest in evolution has also tended to 
strengthen the natural conditions which make for the 
study of the individual. 

But the most important reasons for neglect of scien- 
tific studies of mind in this period lie in experimental 
psychology itself. Experimental psychology is com- 
paratively new, it is still in many fields working out 
more satisfactory details of procedure and apparatus 
for its adult subjects. The methods have evolved 
around introspection and are such as necessitate it 
as a part of the procedure. This at once makes it dif- 
ficult for the psychologist studying the adult to see 
how the infant could be experimented upon since he 
surely can not introspect; although a species of report 
may be obtained from his older brothers or sisters. 
Ament, for instance, says that we can not experiment 
upon the young child with full satisfaction because the 
child is a growing person and the use of many experi- 
ments depends upon the development of the processes 
to be studied, while, he writes, "The possibility of ex- 
perimenting with the child develops as the child de- 
velops" (B, p. 100). Only as the child approximates 
the mental equipment of the adult can we hope to study 
him in a similar manner. 

Chrisman advised laboratory study of the child of 
three years or under in his dissertation in 1896. He 
notes the need of not over-fatiguing the child and in- 
sists that "no experiment dare be unpleasant or the 
least bit harmful" (31, p. 42), but when he comes to 
outline the work that is to be done in the laboratory he 
gives the directions for an elaborate anthropometric 
study and then confines his directions for mental ob- 
servation to sensory discrimination, especially of color. 

Peper (131), too, approves of the use of experi- 



50 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ments but in his attempt to give a list of experiments 
to be tried we find he mentions all those which are 
usually used upon older subjects and he gives no sug- 
gestions for modifications to be made for use upon 
younger children. 

Groos (66) rather discourages any attempt at ob- 
servation under controlled conditions because of the 
difficulty of simplifying our methods. He feels that if, 
however, we can apply an experimental method and at 
the same time keep the child entirely ignorant of our 
purpose it is the best plan to pursue. 

Wundt represents fairly well the attitude experi- 
mental psychologists have held when he says "Animal 
and child psychology are relatively of less value when 
compared with the physiological disciplines of human 
and comparative history of development" (187, p. 6). 
But Stumpf (165) takes a more optimistic view and 
points out that although we can study the child only 
through his reactions to external and internal stimuli, 
yet this indirect method is probably balanced by the 
fact that the child shows his reactions with less dis- 
sembling and control than the adult. 

Ufer, too, relies mainly upon prolonged observa- 
tion of the individual although he does state that "Ob- 
servation under experimental conditions also has its 
justification" (177, p. 70). 

However, it is not until we come to the work of Katz 
that we find an ardent champion of the use of the 
scientific method in studying young children. 

Katz points out in answer to Ament's statement of 
the impossibility of studying the child that "the pos- 
sibility of experimenting with the child decreases with 
the development of the child" (92, p. 21). He points 
out that the mere fact that a young child cannot in- 



RESULTS OF CHILD STUDY 51 

trospect in itself constitutes a problem worth investi- 
gating while the impossibility of using the introspec- 
tive method should not be thought to be synonymous, 
as it has been by Ament and many others, with the 
impossibility of studying the child by a method built 
up with especial regard for the child characteristics. 

Katz feels that he has a method which is an infant 
psychology method and which will bring results which 
we can get in no other way, and he applies the ex- 
perimental method in the study of the origin of color, 
form and size concepts and hence of abstraction. He 
used S9 children between the ages of two and a half and 
six and a half years of age and found no difficulty in 
keeping the children interested and happy. 

If we wish to know how he first conceived the idea 
of using the experimental method with children we can 
find the answer in his earlier study with Revesz (91). 
This was originally a study of the memory and learn- 
ing of hens but in the interests of comparison they 
made a study of twelve children between the ages of 
one and a half and five years of age, using the same 
method, only substituting play counters of different 
colors for the different kinds of grain given the chick- 
ens. They also used a verbal Aufgabe but felt that 
the children, especially the younger ones, comprehend- 
ed the situation more through the environmental con- 
ditions than through the actual verbal directions. 

This leads us to ask whether the adoption of the 
methods of animal psychology is unique with Katz or 
whether others have made similar usage of it. The 
attempts so far are not numerous but they represent 
a new endeavor to reach a scientific method of studying 
the child and are consequently worth surveying. 

Any usage of the child under methods of study 



52 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

which approximate those of comparative psychology 
will not be handicapped by lack of knowledge of the 
mental processes of the child but will deal primarily 
with his behavior or his objective reaction to definite 
stimuli presented in a definite manner under controlled 
conditions. How much have the methods of behavior- 
ism or objective psychology so far contributed to our 
knowledge of the child ? 



CHAPTER III 
BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 

THE study of behavior has come to mean the study 
of any of the visible and external movements of 
the organism, whether man or the lower animals be the 
object of study. The explanation of the movements 
studied is made as far as possible in purely objective 
terms and subjective interpretations are carefully 
avoided. Animal psychology, since its development 
from the anecdotal stage, depends almost entirely upon 
this method but the study of behavior is not purely 
psychological. As Parmelee (126) points out the 
study of behavior involves the study of anatomical 
structure and physiological processes and is conse- 
quently fundamentally biological, while it is psychologi- 
cal when mental processes are involved and sociological 
when the behavior is influenced by association with 
other human beings. 

The confusion of this distinction disappears, how- 
ever, if we assume another point of view. Psychology 
is in reality only a part of the larger science of life in 
general which we call biology and hence assumes as its 
basis the presence of structure and physiological 
processes in the organism. Social reactions it does not 
consider as other than reactions to living stimuli and 
so essentially the same in process as the reactions to 
inanimate objects. This attitude is that adopted by 
present-day comparative psychologists and is well ex- 

53 



54 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

pressed by Watson (184) in his book on behavior. 

Although written primarily as an introduction to 
comparative psychology Watson's book is not limited 
to the field implied by such an aim. In it he touches 
upon and takes a definite attitude towards many ques- 
tions that will probably remain as bones of contention 
for many years. He writes, "Psychology, as the be- 
haviorist views it, is a purely objective, experimental 
branch of natural science which needs introspection 
as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics." 
The theoretical goal of behavioristic psychology is "the 
prediction and control of behavior" (p. 1). This 
shows at once the field of study the behaviorist pre- 
empts. The adjustments of the organism, whether 
it be amoeba or man, will be observed and correlated 
with the potent stimuli under conditions which make it 
possible for the results to be verified. Although hop- 
ing for concessions on the part of the experimental in- 
trospectionists so that the work from the two view- 
points may be mutually helpful, yet these are not be- 
ing taken for granted and Watson writes, "Should hu- 
man psychologists fail to look with favor upon our 
overtures and refuse to modify their position, the be- 
haviorists will be driven to use human beings as subjects 
and employ methods of investigation which are exactly 
comparable to those now employed in the animal 
work" (p. 3). 

The behaviorist looks upon the organism as a ma- 
chine and only insists that in concept this "machine 
be not too simple to enable it to perform all the multi- 
tudinous demands which the behaviorist must make 
upon it" (p. 52). The organism, under study, is char- 
acterized by two types of behavior, instinct and habit. 
Both of these are made up of reflexes. The neural 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 55 

basis of these reflexes is inherited and "It is probable, 
furthermore, that at the birth of the animal or soon 
afterwards all possible nervous connections are already 
established and that all later development — all adjust- 
ments of the animal to changes in its environment by 
habit formation involve only changes in resistance 
through various inherited areas. Thus the possible 
habits which an organism may acquire are limited by its 
nervous structures" (p. 151). 

"Reflex, then, as a unit of analysis of instinct (as 
also of habit . . .) in the modified sense in which 
we use the term, embraces (1) the fairly definite and 
generally predictable but unlearned responses of lower 
and higher organisms to stimuli . . . We must be care- 
ful . . . not to overemphasize the concept of invaria- 
bility and predictability, since depending upon the 
physiological state of the organisms we find, in ex- 
treme cases, the situation where a stimulus which at one 
time produces positive response may, under other con- 
ditions produce negative response ... (2) We have 
in the case of both vetebrates and invertebrates many 
cases of highly unstable and indefinite response" (p. 
110). 

Habit may be diff^erentiated from the instinct in that 
the group of reflexes which form it are organized into 
the order (or temporal order of the unfolding of the ele- 
ments) and pattern (or number and localization of the 
simple reflex arcs involved) within the life period of 
the individual. "What is new in habit is the organi- 
zation. The elements, in general, are as old, or as 
new as the race" (p. 109). 

The "present end of analysis, then, in behavior will 
be the reduction of complex form of response to simple 
reflexes." In many phases the analysis must for the 



56 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

time be but partial as both the extra- and the intra- 
organic stimulations function in the determination of 
the observable response and in many cases the intra- 
organic stimulation cannot be accurately determined. 

Yerkes holds a similar view and writes : "Human be- 
havior is only a part, albeit a most important part, of 
the materials of the general science of organic behavior. 
It presents essentially the same kinds of problems as 
does the behavior of any other mammal ; and it must be 
studied by methods similar to, if not actually identical 
with, those emphasized by the student of infra-human 
behavior" (189, p. 625). 

Only a very few studies of children have been made 
by psychologists holding such a view of psychology as 
behavior. They are consequently worth noting indi- 
vidually. 

In 1911, Hamilton reported a study made for the 
sake of comparing the reactions of various mammals. 
He used a method of quadruple choice. Four possible 
exits from a confining chamber led to food and escape. 
All doors but one were closed and the one opened varied 
from trial to trial. The task was to find the correct 
exit, and hence food, with the smallest number of un- 
successful attempts. Various mammals, cats, dogs, a 
horse, were used as well as a normal adult, children and 
several defectives. All but one of these, an infant of 
26 months, were of school age or over. The infant was 
stimulated with toys when "commendation proved insuf- 
ficient as a motive for reaction" (74, p. 38). This child 
is reported as walking, talking, but not in sentences, 
and as being very quick to form new associations. 

If the child had tried each door once until he found 
the correct one the number of trials he would have 
needed for success due to pure chance would have been 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 57 

250 for the 100 successes required. As it happened he 
used 315 trials and many of his trials (34.21%) 
were re-trials of the same door and hence non-selective 
in character. 

The study is interesting although less valuable be- 
cause made on only one individual in early childhood 
but fails to give us any statement of the exact verbal 
and objective stimuli used. 

Yerkes uses a multiple choice method which is some- 
what similar to the quadruple choice of Hamilton but 
more variable. He says, "The method has been em- 
ployed in experiments with normal and defective chil- 
dren, normal and insane adults, pigs, rats, crows and 
ring doves" (192, p. 186). 

So far however only the results upon crows, pigs and 
monkeys have been published. That it is a satisfactory 
method for working with human beings seems evident 
from a statement in his recent publication on its use 
with monkeys. He writes : "The method has been ap- 
plied with most gratifying results to the study of the 
characteristics of ideational behavior in human defec- 
tives — children, and adults — and in subjects afflicted 
with various forms of mental disease" (188, p. 9). 

In the same manuscript he reports the behavior of a 
child forty months old as compared with that of an 
orang-utan. A banana was suspended from a string 
at a point too high to be reached unless 2 boxes were 
stacked and then stood upon. The child was asked to 
get the banana for the orang and made a number of 
attempts to reach it interspersing them with play and 
interest in other objects and finally losing all inter- 
est so that the experiment was discontinued after 55 
minutes. The orang showed great concentration of 
attention and Yerkes contrasts his behavior favor- 



58 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ably with that of the child. Any comparison, how- 
ever, seems rather arbitrary when we recall the con- 
ditions. The orang was striving for food, the thing 
he understood best, and the stimuli from the situa- 
tion would be reinforced by habit and any hunger sen- 
sations. The child was given a verbal Aufgabe and 
the interest aroused in the banana was not the ego- 
centric one of self-acquisition and self-satisfaction but 
an appeal to his sympathy for the orang. The sit- 
uations are very different and the results naturally are 
not alike in the two instances. 

The maze has been used with human subjects but no 
one has tried it on very young subjects. Hicks and 
Carr (80) used it upon children as young as eight 
years of age but below this age we find no records al- 
though the method is probably applicable if care be 
taken to increase the complexity of the situation gradu- 
ally. There should be no difficulty about using the 
method without a direct verbal Aufgabe. 

Hunter (86) used the method of delayed reactions 
upon raccoons, rats, dogs and children. There were 
five children in all, one two and a half years old, three 
six years of age and one eight years old. The method 
with the children differed radically from that used with 
the animals, the play attitude was suggested and the 
verbal Aufgabe given. The task was as follows : The 
child was behind a gate with the experimenter. On the 
opposite side of the room were three buttons which when 
pushed might make a noise or not as the experimenter 
desired. Above the buttons were electric lights. The 
child was told and taught through accommodating 
practice that if he pushed the proper button it would 
buzz and if he pushed this noisy button first he would 
get some candy. Then the light over some one button 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 59 

was switched on and off, the child was detained a num- 
ber of seconds, varying in the different trials, and then 
allowed to press the button. During the delay inter- 
val, which sometimes lasted twenty minutes or more, 
the child talked to or exchanged stories with the experi- 
menter, drew pictures and in some cases of long delay 
was given candy. 

The children had to acquire the association of the 
light and button for themselves and develop some 
method of retaining this associated factor during the 
delay period in any one trial. All save the youngest 
child learned the association in one trial. With her 
no errors were made after the seventeenth trial. In the 
delayed reactions two children who were six years of 
age experienced no difficulty until the interval had 
lengthened to more than four minutes. These two for- 
mulated their own "purpose to remember." The third 
six-year-old child was told the purpose of the experi- 
ments and had only one error in 15 trials, that on a 21- 
minute interval, although he succeeded on a 35-minute 
interval. This shows clearly the help given by the for- 
mulation. The two-and-a-half-year-old had great diffi- 
culty with even the 10 second period, failing 30% of the 
time although she did far better than that on periods 
as long as 50 seconds. These failures on the shorter in- 
tervals probably represent her failures to formulate a 
successful method of remembering. 

The children are reported as being impatient and 
as fretting because of the delay although this unpleas- 
antness was reduced and largely eliminated by the dis- 
tractions during the delay period. The memory cue as 
to which button to press did not seem to depend at all 
upon a distinctive motor attitude but is due. Hunter 
thinks, to some intra-organic cue which does not persist, 



60 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

due to the distractions during the delay period, but is 
revived at the moment of release. Whether this revived 
cue is sensory-perception or imaginal in content re- 
mains doubtful. 

This is all that has been done with behavior meth- 
ods in the study of young children. The results are 
rather discouraging in a way but are only what might 
be expected when they are the attempts of workers 
primarily interested in animal psychology. They 
make rather good usage of play and rewards but none 
seems to have been able to regard the child in a purely 
objective way as an animal with as distinctive charac- 
teristics as any other animal. Hamilton uses food as 
an incentive for his animals but substitutes toys with 
the infant. Katz substitutes the still more remotely 
affective stimulus of colored counters. Yerkes makes 
a similar error and all three introduce with children 
the additional factor of language. Hunter's work is 
better in his handling of the child but it, too, depends 
upon language development, while all the methods are 
cumbersome and unwieldy, and the results, so far, are 
vague, indefinite and complex. 

But a more exact method of studying the less obvious 
behavior reactions of animals has been developed by 
another school. That is, by the group of Russian 
physiologists led by Pavlov. Their methods and re- 
sults are less easily accessible and hence less well known 
in this country. What have they accomplished that 
may be utilized in the study of behavior? 

In 1863 there appeared in the Russian tongue a work 
entitled "The Reflexes of the Cerebrum." The author, 
Setchenov, was far in advance of his time. He saw 
psychology as a part of physiology, saw it using the 
methods of the natural sciences and concentrating 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 61 

upon the study of motor activity. Although his the- 
ories were somewhat crude, and not wholly in accord 
with the views of Helmholtz which were then generally 
known and accepted, they are most valuable. He for- 
mulated the theoretical basis of the Pavlov method of 
to-day. 

"The psychical processes of man," he writes, "are, as 
is known, recognizable through outer phenomena, and 
usually the laity, as well as the naturalist and the 
psychologist, form an opinion of them by that means. 
Every one knows how great the world of these phe- 
nomena is. In this world are included the great variety 
of movements and sounds of which man is generally 
capable. And this whole mass of facts must be compre- 
hended as far as possible and nothing left unconsidered. 
The problem at the first glance seems insoluble, but in 
reality it is not, and the reason it is not is as follows : 
The whole endless multiplicity of the outer manifesta- 
tions of cerebral activity may be reduced to a single 
phenomenon, that of muscular activity. Thereby this 
question is considerably simplified. In reality it so hap- 
pens that a milliard phenomena, which apparently have 
no connection with one another, may be traced back to 
the activity of a single group of muscles. We know 
that under the hand of the musician impassioned and 
mournful tones may be charmed from the lifeless in- 
strument. The animating and creative hand of the mu- 
sician and the sculptor execute in reality only a num- 
ber of purely mechanical movements which, critically 
examined, may even be submitted to a mathematical 
analysis and be expressed by a formula. How would 
they be able under such conditions to impart the ex- 
pression of passionate feeling to tones and pictures if 
it were not a purely mechanical act.'' There will surely 



62 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

come a time when the outer manifestations of cerebral 
activity will be subjected to analysis just as the physi- 
cist analyses musical accord or the phenomena which 
are manifested by a freely falling body" (153, p. 3). In 
another place he writes: "Thought is the first two- 
thirds of a cerebral reflex" (154, p. 135). 

The work of Setchenov was pioneer but it remained 
for Pavlov and his followers to work out through labor- 
ious experiments the first exact confirmation of his 
theories. 

Under Ivan P. Pavlov, as Director, the work of all 
in the Physiological Department of the Institute of Ex- 
perimental Medicine of St. Petersburg, was for many 
years concentrated on the study of the digestive glands. 
The first considerable announcement of the results ap- 
peared in the year 1897, in the book, published by Pav- 
lov himself, entitled "The Work of the Digestive 
Glands." An English translation of this book was not 
made until 1902. In the preface of it Pavlov states 
that the book is "a joint work, the result of the princi- 
ple, which actuates the whole laboratory. It owes its 
existence to the acuity of each individual, but in its to- 
tality to the guiding conception which has inspired us 
all" (129, p. xi). With the exception of several short 
reports this is the only statement of the work of the 
Russian school accessible in English. A brief resume 
of their problems and results is therefore permissible. 

The subject matter has been tlie physiology of the 
digestive glands. The reason for taking up this sub- 
ject is, Pavlov states, a desire to replace the older, er- 
roneous views presented in textbooks by a fuller and 
more correct representation of the work of these glands. 
The earlier work was based upon the secretion of the 
salivary and gastric glands, or thei galivary and gastfic 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 63 

reflexes, as they were called. The method consisted in 
the study of the quantitative and qualitative modifica- 
tions of the reflex which were conditioned by complex 
receptive and elaborative processes (psychic reactions) 
in the central nervous system. As Pavlov stated, 
"Natural science is under an obligation to determine 
only the precise connection which exists between the 
given natural phenomena and the responsive faculty of 
the living organism with respect to this phenomenon" 
(128, pp. 613-614). 

The technique, involving, as it does, delicate and ac- 
curate surgical methods, is in itself a triumph and too 
well-known to need description. It will suffice to recall 
that from an artificial opening, drawing ofi^ from its 
natural function whatever secretion is being studied, 
there extends a small canula and tube by which the 
drops are either counted as they fall, or are measured 
by the scale on a graduate into which they fall, or else, 
as Nicolai finally developed the method, they drop upon 
the receiving arm of a Marey tambour and are re- 
corded upon a revolving drum. 

Along with the study of the diff^erences in the se- 
cretory reflexes to various edible and non-edible sub- 
stances the discovery was made that any phenomenon 
of the external world which is capable of impinging 
upon the organism through any one of the sense or- 
gans may become the excitant of the secretory re- 
flexes ordinarily functioning in response to nutritive 
substances only. When the secretion is poured out by 
the glands as the result of the presentation of food 
the reflex is said to be a natural or unconditioned one. 
When, however, it functions in reaction to auditory 
stimulation by an arbitrary sound, or in response to 
a mechanical stimulation of the skin or to the presenta- 



64 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

tion of a colored light or to any other stimulus not 
usually accompanying the feeding, then the reflex is 
said to be "artificial" or "conditioned." The stimulus 
which is the excitant of this conditioned reflex is called 
the "conditioned" stimulus. 

The conditioned reflex is established as follows: At 
the same time that the dog (which is the animal that 
has been generally used in the Pavlov laboratory) is 
given a piece of meat or other food that stimulates the 
activity of the reflex, the stimulus which has been 
picked to become the associated excitant of the reflex is 
also presented. This simultaneous presentation of the 
conditioned stimulus and the natural stimulus (i e., the 
food) is repeated a number of times until at last the as- 
sociation has been so well established that the artificial, 
conditioned or unnatural stimulus, as it is variously 
called, will, when presented alone, excite the secretion. 

These conditioned reflexes have several pecularities 
which have been verified by repeated experimentations. 
1. They are unstable or inconstant. 2. They become 
ineff^ective upon repetition, inversely according to the 
time interval between the successive excitations of the 
reflex by use of the conditioned stimulus. 3. Oblitera- 
tion of one reflex does not aff^ect the functioning of oth- 
ers. 4. Spontaneous reappearance takes place only 
after one, two or more hours. 5. A conditioned reflex 
may be redeveloped by renewed association with the 
unconditioned reflex with which it was first associated. 

The work of Pavlov himself seems to be purely physi- 
ological and medical in its interests. True, he speaks 
of, and experiments upon, the "psychic excitation" of 
the digestive secretions, but these so-called "psychic ex- 
citations" are merely all those stimuli which work oth- 
erwise than by direct temperature, chemical and me- 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 65 

chanical excitations by the food entering the buccal 
cavity. The conclusion of his speech presented in the 
Huxley lectures on recent advances in science and their 
bearing on medicine and surgery shows this clearly. 
There he says, "The investigation of the conditioned 
reflex is of very great importance for the physiology 
of the higher parts of the central nervous system. 
Hitherto this department of physiology has throughout 
most of its extent availed itself of ideas not its own, 
ideas borrowed from psychology, but now there is a 
possibility of its being liberated from such evil influ- 
ences. The conditioned reflexes lead us to the consid- 
eration of the position of animals in nature; this is a 
subject of immense extent and one that must be treated 
objectively" (128, p. 618). He ends with the predic- 
tion that these facts will throw light upon the "highest 
and most complicated portion of the animal mechan- 
ism" (128, p. 619). 

This method has been very widely used on dogs but as 
its application involves the formation of a fistula for 
the study of almost any of the secretions it was thought 
to be inapplicable in the study of human beings. Modi- 
fications of method have arisen which are more promis- 
ing. Kalischer (88, 89) trained dogs to eat when he 
presented certain tones, and to refrain from eating 
when all others were presented simply by associating 
the feeding with one tone only and found the dogs 
made no attempt to get the food he held in his hand un- 
less the correct tone had been sounded. Similar meth- 
ods might be used with young children. 

To Bechterew (10) we owe, however, a more radical 
and valuable modification. The work of Pavlov though 
fundamental for the development of the theory of men- 
tal activity as reflex in its nature is too narrow in its 



66 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

application to function as the basis of all psychology. 
Bechterew approaches the same subject from the psy- 
chological rather than the physiological viewpoint and 
hence applies his experimental data in that field. While 
Pavlov's work centers about the secretory reflexes, 
Bechterew studies the motor reflex. One method of 
studying it is as follows. The reflex movement of the 
withdrawal of the foot from metal electrodes through 
electrical stimulation is accompanied by the presenta- 
tion of some other stimulus such as the flash of an 
electric light bulb, the ringing of a bell or the appear- 
ance of a colored form before the subject. After a cer- 
tain number of trials the presentation of the arbitrarily 
chosen stimulus without the accompaniment of electri- 
cal stimulation will suflice to cause the raising of the 
foot. Voluntary movements are also used under various 
controlled conditions. 

To Bechterew all activity is reflex activity or re- 
sponse to stimuli external to the organ or group of mus- 
cles reacting. He writes that he has observed in detail 
the development of reflexes in his five children through- 
out their earliest childhood but he gives us no state- 
ment of results other than a general theorizing regard- 
ing movements and language development as condi- 
tioned reflexes. 

In this country Watson (185) has attempted an ap- 
plication of this method to human beings using Bech- 
terew's method of electrical shock but substituting in 
his later work the movement of the fingers for foot 
and toe movements. The study is interesting to us be- 
cause of its use upon one child, an eight-year-old boy. 
The experiment is reported as follows : "Whether the 
method can be used widely with children has not been 
determined. In the course of twenty minutes we ob- 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 67 

tained the reflex several times upon an eight-year-old 
boy. When first punished he cried and showed some 
reluctancy towards having the experiment continue. 
One of the experimenters then sat in the room with him, 
and, under promise of a moving picture show after the 
experiment, the series was completed with smiling forti- 
tude" (p. 102). 

This simple report of what happened shows very 
significantly that the punishment method is apt to put 
the child into an unfavorable frame of mind and re- 
sults obtained upon him will consequently not be com- 
parable with those obtained from adults who under- 
stand the aim of scientific experiments. With younger 
children it is also highly improbable that the promise of 
some reward would carry them through the necessary 
number of trials and the mothers themselves would 
probablj' object. 

One point is exemplified that can not be too em- 
phatically stressed, no matter what method of study- 
ing the child is used. That is the need of getting en 
rapport with the child, of understanding him and know- 
ing what will appeal to him and keep him interested in 
the experiment. The adult can be verbally directed 
towards the task that is set him in the experiment and 
by his acceptance of the direction is attitudinized to- 
wards the work expected of him and the value of the 
results for science will be sufficient as a goal idea. But 
the child wants immediate reward and also does not 
want to devote any of his time to things that are not 
innately attractive. He must be ruled by interest, not 
by forced attention. 

Watson points out the application of this method 
in the study of sense perception, acuity and discrimina- 
tion in all senses, memory and the so-called association 



68 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

reaction work, also in determining sensory integrity in 
those who for some reason or other do not speak. 

The application to the study of learning cannot come 
by this method unless it is modified. He gives five ex- 
periences with the shock and the other stimulus work- 
ing together, then tries the conditioning stimulus alone. 
If it does not cause the reflex to function, he gives five 
more simultaneous stimulations before he tries it again. 
By this method he knows only that the conditioned re- 
flex has established itself somewhere in the series of five, 
while a trial of the functioning ability after each pun- 
ishment stimulus would give the exact point of develop- 
ment. 

Another line of investigation using the Pavlov 
method of secretions was begun by Bickel and Bogen. 
Bickel had the opportunity to observe a 23-year-old 
girl with a fistula of the esophagus and stomach and 
found that, just as in the Pavlov dogs, "The different 
stimuli, which touch the taste or smell organ, suffice 
to cause a secretion or increase a secretion already in 
flow" (12, p, 591). He did not, it seems, attempt 
any serious experiments in an effort to develop condi- 
tioned reflexes. 

Bogen (17) was familiar with some of the earlier 
reports of Bickel and consequently when a similar case 
presented itself in the Children's Clinic at the Univers-^ 
ity of Heidelberg he studied it not only for the reflex: 
secretion to natural stimuli but for the artificial or con- 
ditioned reflexes. 

The case was a boy three and a half years old who* 
had drunk some lye and gradually developed complete 
stegnosis of the esophagus so that finally a stomach 
fistula was made and used for feeding while curative 
measures were attempted. The experiments were car- 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 60 

ried out while the child was in the hospital. 

The child was laid on his stomach on two out- 
stretched towels which did not meet but allowed the 
canula to pass between. The child could not see what 
was going on in the room. Then he was fed milk or 
meat and the gastric justice would begin flowing al- 
though the food was regurgitated as it could not reach 
the stomach. "After about 6 such experiments had 
been made it also happened that the sight of the meat 
as well as of the milk called forth a psychic secretion of 
gastric juice" (p. 736). Then the associative experi- 
ment was used. "The child was fed a long time — in all 
over 40 times — with meat, while simultaneously a cer- 
tain tone was blown upon a small trumpet" . . . 
Other combinations were also used, the showing of food 
and blowing the trumpet, etc. and "all these experiments 
gave positive results" (p. 73T). Finally in ten trials 
of the blowing of the trumpet seven were followed by 
secretion and only three were negative. Anger and 
pain delayed the secretion, the period of latency for 
meat was four and three-quarters minutes, for milk, 
nine minutes, and the secretion decreased as the in- 
tensity of stimuli decreased. 

So far we see little indication of a method which can 
be easily applied to the normal child of any age inde- 
pendent of his ability to speak or understand the spok- 
en word, or readily adapted for the study of many 
processes, one that does not force the child into an un- 
pleasant situation but that invites his cooperation 
through arousing his interest and which nevertheless 
is thoroughly in accord with scientific theories and is 
able to evoke through its use data scientifically valu- 
able. 

From the work of Pavlov, Bechterew, and Kostyleff 



70 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

(97) who has given the theoretical application of the 
idea of the conditioned reflex its highest development; 
from the work of Verworn (179), Sherrington (155) 
and Loeb (105), and from the work of the behavior 
psychologists already mentioned we have, however, 
evolved a theory of the child which we can use to de- 
velop the working rules for the scientific study of him. 

The child, becoming at birth independent in his ex- 
istence, is an irritable organism with a potentiality for 
many diverse forms of activity. This irritability is at 
first not highly specific but practically any stimulus 
calls forth a diffuse reaction. Within the organism, 
however, certain reactions have already been deter- 
mined in a very specific manner by the completed de- 
velopment of the neural paths subserving those reac- 
tions. These are the first instincts. Gradually spe- 
cific neural paths or neural habits of reaction develop 
for many more and far more varied stimuli. These re- 
actions are instinctive if they are independent of the ex- 
perience of the individual previous to their functioning, 
habits if they are dependent upon his earlier experience. 

Any stimulus in the environment of the individual 
may become the excitant of a reaction which may be- 
come habitual. The type of reaction which any one 
stimulus may excite is not specific but is of an excess- 
ively varied potentiality. Any reaction of the child at 
any time is dependent not only upon his environment at 
that time but also upon the sum total of his earlier ex- 
periences and likewise not independent of his eff^ectively 
inherited predispositions, that is the specific tendencies 
or incapacities of his organism. 

The complexity of the conditions is increased by the 
fact that the child is a growing organism. Habits are 
formed, specific reactions developed, not only because 



BEHAVIORISM AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 71 

of the plastic receptivity of his organism but all activ- 
ity and functioning is favored by the very nature of 
the child himself. His fundamental necessity is growth. 
The great strides which the most casual observer notes 
in the young child are the result of simultaneity of 
growth in structure and growth in function which we 
call adaptation or learning. 

From this we may formulate the theorems basal for a 
scientific method of studying child behavior. 

1. The child is a responsive organism. 

2. Response may be structural and so involves 
growth. 

3. The study of structural responses, as a type of 
adaptation and learning, is the necessary concomitant 
of the study of neural response. The two are not an- 
tagonistic. The presence of one does not, as has often 
been claimed, impede the study of the other. They are 
necessary correlates and their correlated presence dis- ' 
tinguishes the study of the child from the study of the 
adult which is largely one of interest in function. 

4. All neural response is of the reflex type, that is, 
direct response to a stimulus or group of stimuli. 

5. The neural response is never arbitrary but al- 
ways motivated by a definite stimulus although for any 
one stimulus the response may vary greatly, and, vice 
versa, any one response may at different times be 
caused by widely diff^erent stimuli. 

6. The child responds to all in his environment for 
which sense specificity has developed but primarily to 
the most effectively sensed stimuli. 

7. Any stimulus quality in the external world may 
be brought into causal or inhibitory relation with any 
reaction or group of reactions of the functioning or- 
ganism and probably none is without structural effect. 



72 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

The next question is as to the methods by which 
this theory may be applied to the study of the young 
child. Baldwin in his dynamogenic method comes very 
near giving one solution, while Warner's work on hand 
movements approaches a similar and more exact solu- 
tion of the same thing. But neither of these men had 
the apperceptive background of method and knowledge 
of the conditioned reflex which in Krasnogorski led in- 
evitably to its application to the study of children. His 
work far exceeds in suggestiveness anything preceding 
it, although it should be mentioned that the work of 
Bickel and Bogen seems to have been an incentive to 
him. His method and its application are, however, his 
own. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 

THE first definite application of the Pavlov method 
to normal children was made by Krasnogorski. 
In 1907, in the Russki Wratsch (98), he presented 
the results of a study of conditioned reflexes as devel- 
oped in sucklings. Using one fourteen-month-old baby, 
he studied the cortical activity as indicated by salivary 
secretion. He had the child in a room by itself, lying 
on a table, no noise or other changing factor being al- 
lowed to disturb the conditions, and even the movements 
of the experimenter being kept as constant as possible. 
After a few trials in which the child was excited by 
the sight of food (milk in a glass) held at a distance 
there was an increasing frequency of swallowing move- 
ments and also a motor reaction of mouthing and suck- 
ing. Krasnogorski felt that this presented such a spe- 
cific picture that it might well be used to study the con- 
ditioned reflexes in normal cases where there was no 
salivary fistula by means of which the salivary secretion 
could be studied. 

In children even the most unimportant salivary se- 
cretion, of even 0.5 of a square centimeter, induces the 
act of swallowing and by the number of swallowings in 
a given time one can judge the force of secretion. In 
this instance the child studied had been fed and had 
then enjoyed a short rest before being brought under 
the experimental conditions. 

73 



74 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

A glass with milk in it was shown with the following 
results : 

Record of Number of Swallows in Three Minutes 

First Second Third 

Observation Observation Observation 

Before 13 3 

stimu- 3 3 2 

lation 2 3 

2 13 

Excited by food 9 16 10 

When the auditory stimulus of a ringing bell was 
used the following results were obtained in a 3- to 5- 
minute interval after the ringing of the bell, "after a 
certain number of trials" (he does not state the num- 
ber). 



Record of Number of Swallows in Three 


TO Five 


Minutes 








First 




Second 




Third 


Observation 


Observation 


Observation 


3 




3 




5 


Before 4 










excita- 2 




3 




4 


tion 2 















2 




4 


During 










stimulation 6 




8 




8 



From these observations Krasnogorski concludes: 
The amount of secretion in response to the auditory 

stimulation is in quantitative relation to the amount 

secreted during the foreperiod. 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 75 

If the unconditioned stimulus used is one producing 
a relatively great amount of saliva then the amount ob- 
tained from excitation by a conditioned stimulus built 
up upon this basis is correspondingly great as meas- 
ured by the increasing frequency of swallowing. 

If the child cries when he sees food and does not get 
it this interferes with the conditioned reflex, having an 
unfavorable influence upon it, and the experiment can 
be resumed with favorable results, only when the child 
again becomes quiet. 

Later Krasnogorski modified and perfected his pro- 
cedure considerably. A first full report of the find- 
ings with these improved methods was made by him in 
1908 at the meeting of the Society of Children's Physi- 
cians in Petrograd. 

He had been studying the secretion of saliva by 
counting the number of swallowing movements which, 
being dependent upon the secretion itself, might natur- 
ally be expected to vary with it in intensity and dura- 
tion. But there intervened a period between the first 
stimulation by a food quality and this movement, a 
period in which saliva was being secreted but had not 
yet accumulated in sufficient quantity to stimulate the 
swallowing reflexes. Other movements were present and 
noticeable, however. 

These were movements of mouth opening as prepara- 
tion for food reception. Accordingly he changed his 
observation to a record of the combined movements of 
mouth opening and swallowing. These were recorded 
by the simple arrangement of the receptive plate of a 
Marey tambour placed over the thyroid cartilage or the 
hyoid bone, connected by a rubber tubing with a re- 
cording arm which traced each movement upon a ky- 
mograph. 



76 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

The child, with recorder in position, was "placed in 
absolute quietness upon a table in an isolated room. 
The eyes of the child were bandaged to avoid visual 
stimuli, if the conditioned reflexes were developed from 
various other receptive sensory surfaces" (99, p. 10). 
Taking first a control record of a quiescent state he 
next stimulated the child by feeding chocolate or honey. 
In the curves recording this feeding the initial devia- 
tion marking mouth opening may be easily diflPerenti- 
ated from the swallowing records following. Such a 
"natural" or unconditioned reflex is too complex to al- 
low of satisfactory analysis, consequently the effort 
was made to establish "conditioned" or "artificially de- 
veloped" reflexes. 

Three children were used, one three years old and 
two six years old. First the conditioned reflex was es- 
tablished in the 3-year-old by the ringing of an electric 
bell for one minute, every third minute with the ac- 
companying feeding of one-half teaspoonful of honey 
fifteen seconds after the ringing started. This was re- 
peated until the ringing of the bell was sufficient to 
cause the feeding movements. The association lasted 
and functioned two weeks after its last developmental 
functioning. The same conditioned reflex was devel- 
oped in one 6-year-old and the "reaction after 24 hours 
was weaker than a second reaction 25 minutes later" 
(99, p. 13). 

In both 6-year-olds the reflex was developed to the 
sounding of a tone on the reed pipe. Chocolate was 
given 10 minutes after the beginning of the sound. Al- 
though the note gave the reflex action yet similar re- 
action occurred to other tones. Seemingly, tonal dis- 
crimination is not as well developed in the child at 
six as Seleni and others find it to be in the dog. Nor 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 77 

did re-enforcement of only the response to the correct 
tone by chocolate feeding seem propaedeutic of in- 
creased tonal discrimination. 

Krasnogorski also used cutaneous stimulation, 
scratching a place on the skin lightly with a camel's 
hair brush for one minute and, after 15 seconds of the 
mechanical irritation, associatively feeding chocolate. 
This stimulus soon became an adequate excitant of the 
feeding reflexes. But in the 6-year-olds the stimulus 
was not spatially specific, the same response in the re- 
flex followed scratching upon the foot as had been de- 
veloped to scratching of the arm above the elbow. 
Spatial specificity of excitation of reflex was secured in 
the 6-year-olds, however, by alternating stimulation of 
the particular spot first used and feeding, with stimula- 
tion of other portions of the body without feeding. In 
the 3-year-old child the stimulation had a specific and 
local value from the first. 

The question of the decadence or unlearning of the 
conditioned reflex next occupied Krasnogorski's at- 
tention. A 6-year-old was put in a quiet position and 
the child stimulated by sight of food held before him 
without his being fed. This was continued 30 seconds. 
After 5 minutes a second stimulation was similarly con- 
ducted, a third, and then on the fourth no reaction 
occurred. Then the child was given some honey and the 
reaction immediately reappeared. 

With the other 6-year-old, where a conditioned reflex 
had been developed to the ringing of an electric bell 
every 10 minutes for 30 seconds, the disappearance 
took place gradually being completed in five trials. 
When the pauses between stimulations in this same child 
were only 5 minutes the inhibition occurred after three 
trials. The reflex was renewed by one associative func- 



78 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

tioning of conditioned stimulus and feeding. 

The breaking down of the reflex as conditioned by 
mechanical stimulation occurs with a 6-year-old child 
after 3 trials, being absent on the fourth and fifth 
trials. 

A second series of experiments was carried out in 
which the working of the feeding, or natural stimulus, 
and the artificial stimulus instead of being simultaneous 
were successive. Mechanical stimulation was used, for 
example, and after its application for 30 seconds there 
was a pause of 10 seconds and then the child was fed 
in the 11th second. After 16 such associated func- 
tionings the scratchings acted as a conditioning factor 
in the 17th trial. This reaction occurred during the 
early part of the scratching period, but during sub- 
sequent repetitions it appeared more and more slowly 
until it was present only after the cessation of the 
scratching. The child was lively and very exceptional 
in endowment and attempts to break down the condi- 
tioned reflex were very slow in taking eff*ect. It took 
eleven functionings without feeding before, on the 
twelfth stimulation, we find a complete dissolution of the 
reaction. In disappearing the reflex maintained the 
temporal position developed earlier of functioning after 
the period of stimulation. 

Krasnogorski did not in this study ascertain the 
value of reflexes during sleep or relative values at dif- 
ferent ages although he states that in decadence the re- 
flexes are "diff^erent in diff^erent children" (99, p. 24). 

In 1913 Krasnogorski presented a second report of 
his work at the International Medical Congress held in 
London. Evidently, in spite of the brevity of his re- 
port, the results he has achieved are conclusive to him 
for he says, "Each phenomenon of the external world, 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 79 

which is received by the peripheral systems of the child, 
can be brought into a temporary association with a 
motor, that is a secretory, act. All possible stimuli of 
sight, hearing and skin can be metamorphosed into spe- 
cific excitants and call forth a definite motor act if their 
effect as stimuli is temporally associated with the motor 
act several times" (100, p. 376). 

Without giving detailed results (or in fact any spe- 
cific data) he states that in normal children S-10 trials 
is sufficient to establish an associative functioning ; that 
the conditioned reflexes so established are of "high 
stability" and "easy inhibition," but that there is a wide 
range of innate individual variation and he also inti- 
mates, but does not actually state, a diff*erence due to 
chronological age, for he writes : "In normal infants the 
cortical innervations are so little developed in the first 
two or three months of life that the conditioned asso- 
ciations usually can not be developed. But as early as 
the second half of the first year of life the development 
of temporary associations from all receptive surfaces 
(eyes, ears, nose, skin) is indeed possible, but occurs 
more slowly than is the case in later life. Only in the 
course of the second year of life does the mechanism of 
the conditioned reflexes reach its full development and 
functional perfection" (100, p. 376-377). 

Moreover Krasnogorski asserts that all sorts of 
pathological states cause changes in the activity of the 
conditioned reflexes ; fever periods reduce activity, while 
"In many cases of idiocy, in neuro-psychopathic chil- 
dren, in cases of organic lesions of the cortex the de- 
velopment of the temporary association is either entire- 
ly impossible or else very much more difficult" (100, 
p. 377). 

The dissolution of these conditioned reflexes is also 



80 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

very interesting and exceedingly valuable Krasnogorski 
believes. In neuropathic children this process is un- 
usually difficult. He gives as an example the case of 
a five-year-old boy where the conditioned reflex in re- 
sponse to cutaneous stimulation developed "propor- 
tionately easily" and where thirty-one repetitions of 
the conditioning stimulus without accompanying feed- 
ing were necessary before the dissociation was effected. 

The memory-conditioned reflexes are also more fully 
treated in this report. Unlike the memory conditioned 
reflex of the dog which lacks specificity and disappears 
easily "high specificity and extraordinary precision 
are usual characteristics of this group of the reflexes 
in human beings . . . the memory reflex is formed 
just as easily as the usual contemporary associations. 
It is sufficient to cause the memorial eff'ect of some sort 
of a stimulus to occur together with the opening of the 
mouth only 20-30 times in order for these memory 
traces to become adequate excitants" (100, p. 379). 
As this memory reflex develops at a later age, shows 
lessened specificity in many neuropathic children, and 
is more difficult to develop in imbeciles and morons its 
clinical significance is great. 

The next mechanism w^hich Krasnogorski has investi- 
gated is that of the analysers. Analysers, according to 
the Pavlov and Krasnogorski terminology are "those 
neural apparatus which analyze and resolve the stimuli 
of the external world into the minutest parts in order 
to build up from these fractional bits new combina- 
tions which represent the regular projection of these or 
those external phenomena" (100, p. 380). Dogs have 
the auditory analyser perfected to the discrimination 
of differences of an eighth of a tone while with children 
it is very poorly developed, but with them the visual an- 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 81 

alyser is much more highly developed than with the dog. 
Red and white lights are discriminated by 5- to 6- 
months-old normal infants, odors are differentiated 
without great difficulty at the age of 7 to 8 months 
while the skin analyser is well developed towards the 
end of the first year. The movement analyser or motor 
zone is very poorly developed during the first year, 
but reaches its full development in the course of the 
second year of life. 

Analysing ability is greatly decreased in idiot and 
imbecile children, may be disturbed temporarily or per- 
manently in neuropathic conditions, appearing less 
readily and fluctuating more easily. A most marked 
example of disturbance of the motor analyser is to be 
found in the hysterical paralyses. 

"The clinical investigation of the ability of the an- 
alysers to differentiate as made by means of the condi- 
tioned motor reflexes appears to be the sole objective 
clinical method which permits the determination of the 
analyser activity of a definite portion of the cortex 
as well as the discrimination of pathological processes. 

Each neural process consists, as is known, of the 
phenomena of stimulation and of innervation — they 
are in a manner two halves of one and the same activity 
of the nervous system. The normal course of these 
nerve processes depends upon the balancing, upon the 
equal force, of these two forms of energy. Consequently 
it is comprehensible what unusual significance apper- 
tains to the mechanism which lies at the bottom of cor- 
tical innervations" (100, p. 384-385). 

The method of conditioned reflexes, because of the 
delicate fluctuations in the reflex due to changes in the 
organism gives us an excellent measure of the interplay 
of reactions, of inhibition, and discharge in any one cor- 



82 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

tical center. At first the stimulus of any one sense ex- 
cites the whole cortical area of that sense and all such 
stimulation is followed by the associated reflexes of 
feeding. But as only one part of that sense organ is 
stimulated in association with the natural conditioning 
of feeding gradually the rest of that group of cortical 
analysers develops an inhibitory condition and only 
the selected and specific stimulation arouses the reflex. 
This specificity of reaction is rapidly lost and is very 
unstable. "One must assume," writes Krasnogorski, 
"that the whole cortege is filled with such conditioned 
centers, which quicMy arise, quickly disappear, quickly 
develop in size, soon grow smaller and are always hound 
up with this or that system^ of the cortex according to 
the conditions of their arousal'^ (100, p. 388). 

The formation of this specific conditioned reflex in 
animals passes through three stages. First the at- 
tempted inhibition brings accompanying inhibition of 
the desired reaction also, then "stimulation of the inac- 
tive part induces a reflex but its disappearance is not 
followed by the disappearance of the reflex from the ac- 
tive part; in the third phase . . . the phase of 
absolute differentiation, the inactive stimulation excites 
neither secretory nor motor reaction any longer, al- 
though the stimulation of the active part shows its max- 
imum result" (100, p. 388). In children, however, 
Krasnogorski finds the first two phases little differenti- 
ated and absolute differentiation rapidly develops ex- 
cept in very young infants and in neuropaths where the 
second phase is almost always clearly lengthened. In 
idiocy, imbecility and myxoedema "the formation of 
conditioned centers takes place with unusual difficulty" 
(100, p. 388) while in excitable neuropathy "the stabil- 
ity of the conditioned centers appears greatly reduced" 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 83 

(100, p. 388). The "inner inhibition" is more inert 
in young children and only reaches its functional ma- 
turity in children between three and four years of 



Another mechanism discovered by Pavlov's labora- 
tory and used by Krasnogorski is that designated as a 
"conditioned inhibition." By associating any stimulus 
with the working of a previously established conditioned 
reflex, without accompanying feeding, the new stimulus 
becomes in a short time the adequate stimulus for inhi- 
bition of the action of the conditioned reflex which it 
accompanied but this conditioned reflex functions as 
usual when the inhibiting stimulus is not applied. 

This inhibition Krasnogorski finds develops in nor- 
mal children in from five to ten trials. It then has a 
strong inhibitory eff*ect, breaks down easily and disap- 
pears slowly if left to time. In gross pathological 
cases, however, the inhibition develops more slowly, is 
less eff*ective and disappears very quickly. In neuro- 
pathic children the inhibition behaves difl'erently ac- 
cording to the type. The excitable neuropath develops 
the inhibition easily, but it breaks down easily and dis- 
appears rapidly under lapse of time. In the phlegmatic 
child it develops slowly and only in response to rela- 
tively strong stimuli and it may, although not always, 
last a considerable period. 

The most complex mechanism evolved by Krasno- 
gorski is that of "loading and discharge." A condi- 
tioned reflex is developed in response to a stimulus 
through any sense organ and any chance development 
of a conditioned reflex in response to stimulation of 
some other sense is broken down by the repetition of the 
stimulation without feeding. Then the conditioning 
stimulus is given and no feeding but a presentation of 



84 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

the non-conditioning stimulus follows and the feeding 
follows it. Then the non-conditioning stimulus is given 
again without accompanying feeding. Thus the reflex 
develops in sequential order as response to the first 
stimulus, formerly indiff^erent, after the conditioning 
stimulus. Krasnogorski used ringing a bell one-half 
minute, then 3 minutes later stimulating the skin. "In 
this case," he writes, "the skin stimulation appears, so 
to speak, as the trigger of the charge weapon. We 
load the neural mechanism with the stimulation by the 
ringing of the bell, this lading remains in the cortex and 
can be discharged at a favorable moment, if we set in 
motion our depressing mechanism — the skin stimula- 
tion" (100, p. 391-392). 

In view of the clinical significance which Krasnogor- 
ski claims for this mechanism it is worth while to give 
here his physiological explanation of it. "The ele- 
ments of the hearing analyser were brought into a co- 
temporal association with the motor cells. Then we 
changed the conditions of our experiments in that we 
did not let the unconditioned stimulus (the giving of 
chocolate) occur together with the ringing of the bell, 
but with a stimulation of the skin following a little 
afterwards. Consequently an inner inhibition was de- 
veloped in the hearing analyser which restrained the 
energy of the bell stimulation in a latent condition, did 
not permit it to pass over into the motor elements. In 
contrast the cortical elements of the skin analyser are 
in no co-temporal association with the motor elements 
— as we have seen, the skin stimulation as such arouses 
no motor act. The skin analyser is exclusively in a co- 
temporal contact with the inhibiting mechanism of the 
hearing analyser. Therefore it is clear that as soon as 
the skin stimulation is received and the elements of the 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 85 

skin analyser are set in motion, the wave of the stimu- 
lation (the positive energy) must tend over the paths 
developed towards the inhibiting mechanism of the hear- 
ing analyser. The inhibiting energy (negative energy) 
which is concentrated in the hearing analyser is thereby 
neutralized and consequently the inhibiting mechanism 
is weakened and the charge of positive energy of the 
hearing analyser is freed from the inhibition. This 
energy of the hearing analyser will be conducted, by 
the temporary associations by which the hearing analy- 
ser is connected with the motor element, to the latter 
and will call forth, as we have seen, a motor reaction" 
(100, p. 392). 

This mechanism was developed in a five-year-old child. 
A cutaneous conditional reflex was developed and then 
a ringing of a bell introduced with skin stimulation 2 
minutes later. No reaction appears but to the next 
skin stimulation ten minutes later a reaction is evi- 
dent. 

This mechanism does not function before the end 
of the second year of life and only reaches its full 
development in the third year. In excitable neuropaths 
this mechanism develops rapidly but also disappears 
easily. These are the children who learn rapidly and 
forget just as readily. In the phlegmatic neuropath 
the mechanism forms slowly and then in some imbeciles 
is very unstable while in others it is persistent. Some 
children who learn very readily also keep the acquired 
reaction very persistently. 

These six mechanisms, co-temporally conditioned re- 
flexes, their inhibition, memorially-conditioned reflexes, 
specific memory reflexes, ability of analysers, lading 
and discharge, give us an objective measurement of the 
child's neural assets which must replace the so-caUed 



86 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

intelligence testing. They will also give us a definite 
means of clinically separating the pathological cases 
in early childhood. 

Krasnogorski asserts also that (in epileptics) their 
functioning will indicate the onset of a convulsion and 
pass through four stages of re-development of their 
power of functioning after a convulsion. In myxce- 
dema the reflexes develop slowly and disappear rapidly. 
Thyroid treatment does not change the manner of func- 
tioning of these reflexes. 

There is a diminution of activity of these mechanisms 
in the beginning of tubercular meningitis and this de- 
crease is constant and progressive. 

By means of the study possible at an early age by 
use of these mechanisms defects discovered may be cor- 
rectively and educationally dealt with long before they 
are usually noticed and the possible value and signifi- 
cance of this training may be enormous. 

CRITICISM OF KRASNOGORSKl's STUDIES 

Promising and valuable as Krasnogorski's work may 
appear to even the casual reader, no one would deny 
that it is suggestive rather than decisive, initial rather 
than final and inspirational rather than scientific so far 
as the data published are concerned and there are sev- 
eral points open to criticism. 

In his statement regarding technique Krasnogorski 
shows he has eliminated all disturbing stimuli from the 
external world by ensuring a quiet room and a quiet 
subject in a position of relaxation. One important 
factor he has entirely neglected despite these precau- 
tions. That is the child himself. No mention is made 
as to how he was induced to assume the position, as to 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 87 

whether he was familiar with the experimenter, what his 
emotional reaction to the situation was, what his atti- 
tude mentally was, that is, was he bribed or threatened 
or coaxed. In fact that whole externally-undetectable 
group of factors is not even hinted at although more 
detailed statements as to how the child was handled 
might throw some light upon the results obtained. 

No mention is made by Krasnogorski of the criteria 
used to determine the mental development of his sub- 
jects. Idiots, imbeciles, cretins, hysteria cases, neuro- 
psychopaths, epileptics, have all evidently been studied 
as well as normal children, but of how many and of 
what ages, degree of pathological characterization, and 
hereditary predisposition we can unfortunately find no 
statement. 

In his work to determine pitch discrimination Kras- 
nogorski used a reflex developed upon a feeding delayed 
ten minutes after the "beginning of the sound." How 
long the sound was kept up we do not know, but the 
conditions seem rather unfair either way. If the sound 
were continued half the time subjective changes such as 
those due to fatigue, anticipation and fluctuation of at- 
tention would make final discrimination of the sound 
difficult when compared with another at least five or 
ten minutes later. If the bell rang or tone sounded 
only a few seconds the difficulty would be to tell to what 
extent the child remembered and how far he forgot the 
stimulus in the eight- or nine-minute interval. Prob- 
lems on tonal discrimination undertaken with adults re- 
port great difficulty in discrimination when tones are 
immediately successive. 

Although he states that the conditioned reflex is very 
difficult to develop in children under one year of age, yet 
Krasnogorski has used it to determine color discrimina- 



88 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

tion at the age of six or seven months, showing that that 
mechanism can be developed at such an age. 

The time intervals in the various experiments differ 
without any seeming rationality. In one series the stim- 
ulation was of one minute's duration and with two min- 
utes between successive stimulations, and feeding was 
fifteen seconds after initiation of the stimulation. In 
testing dissolution of the reflex thirty seconds of stimu- 
lation at five minute intervals was used. In another 
case the reflex was developed by thirty seconds of stim- 
ulation applied every ten minutes, while dissolution was 
attempted with both five- and ten-minute periods. 

Since in this latter case the results obtained on the 
same child varied with the time interval we must con- 
sider this interval an Important factor. In order that 
results may be at all valuable for comparison it must 
be kept as nearly constant as possible. If one develops 
a conditioned reflex with a minute's stimulation once 
every three minutes and breaks It down with thirty sec- 
onds of stimulation every five minutes there are two 
variables in the time factor alone and the value of the 
variation between development and dissolution cannot 
be calculated except through results obtained by numer- 
ous series of experiments. Undoubtedly a minute's 
stimulation is dlff^erent from a half minute's application 
of the same stimulus, but whether the additional thirty 
seconds strengthens the eff^ect, whether it merely bal- 
ances fatigue or whether It lessens the eff^ect through 
adaptation can not be settled a priori. The length of 
interval, too, seems to aff^ect results but whether three 
or five or ten minutes is most conducive to rapid devel- 
opment of functioning of the conditioned reflex, whether 
it works alike on all ages of and types of children must 
be questions merely raised for further investigation. 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 89 

Moreover with objective methods one looks for ob- 
jective results. In very few of Krasnogorski's experi- 
ments do we have statements as to the number of trials 
necessary to develop the mechanisms. 

In one instance he states that after sixteen stimula- 
tions a memory reflex was developed (99, p. SI). No 
statement is given as to the amount of time between 
these stimulations. If it was even three minutes, the 
shortest interval he mentions anywhere, the experiment 
occupied forty-five minutes. This is a period of such 
a length that for the young child the amount of fatigue 
in the later stimulations probably almost balanced their 
impression value. If the experiment was carried on in 
two or more sittings fatigue may have been avoided but 
there is no statement to any such effect. At any rate 
the results would probably be different if achieved at 
one sitting or if the series was divided and knowledge of 
the condition should be made available. 

Throughout Krasnogorski speaks of hearing "analy- 
sers," motor "analysers," visual "analysers" and their 
functioning which gives specificity to the conditioned re- 
flexes. We have seen his physiological explanation of 
these functioning entities. Need we accept it.^ A less 
mystical explanation seems to lie in a more natural 
application of the theory of cerebral reflexes in its 
essential form. A stimulus is applied to some one sense 
organ. The excitation passes along neural paths into 
the brain and irradiates into conjunctive paths. Then 
a second excitant passes in and irradiates from the 
taste paths to those of motor type leading out to mus- 
cular and glandular innervation of the throat, lips and 
salivary glands. But part of the irradiation from the 
motor region has sped along the nerves leading towards 
other centers including the one already stimulated by 



90 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

our first excitant. This has been doubly used and has 
a stronger tendency to function a second time than a 
nerve conductor strengthened by usage only once. 
After a number of repetitions this path, this habit or 
association is strong enough to function immediately 
when only the one stimulus has been given. This is a 
conditioned reflex pure and simple, or in terms more 
clearly psychological it is an association, arbitrarily 
determined, between some one sense excitant and a mo- 
tor innervation. This is the simplest type of learning. 

The persistence of the conditioned reflex becomes in 
psychological terms the retention of the association. 
Its degenerescence or dissolution becomes unlearning. 

The inhibition of the conditioned reflex is the neural 
restraint of one reflex by the simultaneously working 
effect of a second reflex as strong or stronger. 

Where the conditioned reflex has been formed upon 
the memory of an antecedent stimulation we have again 
the simple association only here it is the image of the 
sensation or even probably, in the later part of the ex- 
periment-series, the sensation of cessation of stimula- 
tion which is associated with the motor cortical center. 
May it be supposed that if the image functions as the 
excitant a greater number of applications of the stimu- 
lus will be necessary, due to the greater vagueness of the 
image, than in a simultaneous association? May we 
also assume that if the series needed is not longer the 
association is rather with the cessation of the stimulus ? 

The mere fact that Krasnogorski finds that the so- 
called "memory reflex" does develop as easily as the 
usual co-temporary reflex rather indicates that this 
suggested interpretation is the correct one. 

The analysers now become the different paths of con- 
veyance of sense impressions : specificity of reaction 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 91 

means sensory discrimination. In the very young child 
it will be hard for us to tell how far this approaches the 
physiological limen of sensory discrimination and to 
what extent it is Seashore's (152) "cognitive" discrimi- 
nating limen, higher or less fine than the physiological 
limen due to changes in interest, attention, effort or dis- 
turbances. In so far as it is dependent upon cognitive 
abilities one would hesitate before using it, as Krasno- 
gorski suggests, to map out analgesic or anaesthetic 
centers unless the mental development of the child has 
been carefully ascertained beforehand. Moreover the 
sensory equipment must be examined before we can be 
sure the cortical mechanisms are getting the proper 
sensations to differentiate. No reference to any such 
preliminary study is made by Krasnogorski. 

The conditioned inhibition, or as he called it, "lad- 
ing and discharge," may be explained as a neural as- 
sociation with an additional link in it. The cutaneous 
stimulation, for example, functions through no direct 
path to the motor center but is associated with an audi- 
tory excitation and the auditory excitation arouses 
the motor response. Neither one functions alone be- 
cause in all probability it is the reception of an audi- 
tory stimulation by the organism when in a certain at- 
titude produced by the cutaneous stimulation plus the 
memory of stimuli, i. e., a state of active attention, 
which makes the auditory stimulus a sufficient excitant 
of the reaction. Can this be shown objectively.? 

Thus we see instead of a series of new "mechanisms" 
merely the objectively studied results of a behaving 
organism. The Pavlov and Krasnogorski reflexes must, 
as Hough (83) has pointed out, be differentiated from 
the unconditioned reflex as a separate type of reaction 
and not be considered merely as an unconditioned reflex 



92 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

in process of formation. The conditioned reflex is 
learning, association, habit formation. As such the 
possibility of its formation is a so-called conscious 
one, functioning through the cerebrum and by means 
of the so-called association centers. 

The validity of this assumption of the conditioned re- 
flex as a functioning of the neencephalon is confirmed 
by Burnett's (22) work on the decerebrate frog, which 
he found could not learn to escape a labyrinth but per- 
formed unconditioned reflex acts. 

The observations of Edinger and Fischer (42) re- 
garding the anencephalic child who lived a purely vege- 
tative existence for three and a half years but never 
showed any learning ability again corroborate, and in 
a more striking way, the same interpretation of the 
conditioned reflex. 

To what extent we may class the formation of a con- 
ditioned reflex in the same group of mental processes 
as the verbal associations it is difficult to state. In 
the verbal association the stimulus may be the same as 
in the conditional reflex, may vary similiarly in intensi- 
ty and complexity, may be just as clearly or indefinitely 
sensed, causing the verbal reaction which outwardly dif- 
fers from the feeding reactions only in that it involves 
more varied motor adjustments which are not so fully 
developed at birth. 

The conditioned reflexes as we commonly conceive 
of them are undoubtedly more direct, and have fewer in- 
termediate steps in their development but how many 
less and the relative amount of functioning necessary to 
form an association of either type can only be deter- 
mined by further experimentation. 

The claims made by Krasnogorski for his method 
and findings are so great that a verification or disproof 



EXPERIMENTS OF KRASNOGORSKI 93 

of them seems to be demanded from the standpoint of 
both experimental and clinical psychology. If the 
method is so easily and accurately applicable and al- 
lows of so many variations, it opens up to the experi- 
mentalist a most promising avenue of attack upon the 
infant mind. If it differentiates with such accuracy 
the defective and pathogenic child while he is still young 
enough for preventive education and corrective therapy 
to have a chance, it will revolutionize our present clini- 
cal methods. 



CHAPTER V 

METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE MODIFIED 
FROM KRASNOGORSKI 

SINCE an extensive and at the same time intensive 
study of all the processes outlined by Krasno- 
gorski would involve a problem too voluminous to be 
handled with facility and coherence, the selection for 
preliminary study of the processes which seemed most 
significant became necessary. As the formation of the 
conditioned reflex is basal to all the other mechanisms, 
it, naturally, would be included in any group selected. 
Then, as the fatigue incident upon the development of 
the conditioned reflex would be apt to interfere with 
the successful development of any other mechanism, 
the further experimentation with any one child was 
postponed until the following day. But it then be- 
came necessary to ascertain the retained functioning 
ability of the conditioned reflex after the twenty-four 
hour interval and this consequently was a test of 
memorial regression or saving through retention of 
the learning of the previous day. 

With only these two processes in mind, after some 
practice experimentation upon available babies, seven 
idiots at the Massachusetts School for the Feeble- 
Minded, located at Waverly, were studied. Due to in- 
teresting diff^erences in functioning of the reflex after 
the 24-hour period, 48-, 72- and 96-hour intervals were 
also tried. No apparatus was used for recording 
the mouth opening and swallowings but the movements 

94 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 95 

were observed and immediately recorded by the experi- 
menter who felt in this series that her mechanization of 
the procedure of the experiment was not sufficient to 
enable her to handle with ease the apparatus as well as 
the child and the food. 

The results obtained by this series of experiments 
will be discussed in their proper connection later. 

Next, in order that the acquaintance with the use of 
Krasnogorski's work might not be in one direction only, 
a long series of observations was made upon one child. 
This was a boy of five who lived near enough to the 
laboratory to be able to come regularly, in spite of bad 
weather, and whose parents recognized, because of their 
own University training, the value of such studies and 
gave hearty co-operation. Recording apparatus was 
used with this child throughout the series. 

The results obtained here showed the need for ex- 
tensive study of each process to determine the signifi- 
cance of variations in its functioning as well as to de- 
termine the probable variations among children of dif- 
ferent ages, abilities and capacities. Consequently it 
was decided that the best method of attack was the 
study of a few of the processes upon a large unselected 
group of children. 

The processes finally selected for study in the large 
group of children were the following : 

First, the formation of a simple conditioned reflex, 
or, in other terms, the formation of a sensory-motor 
association. 

The Pavlov school has shown that any stimulus may 
be made the effective stimulus for the functioning of a 
reflex naturally conditioned by some other stimulus. 
Such a stimulus should be as little offensive as possible 
unless we are interested in a comparative study of 



96 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, and it should be as 
simple a stimulus as possible so that the response in 
different children may not be due to response to differ- 
ent parts of a complex stimulus. 

Krasnogorski usually used cutaneous or auditory 
stimuli with the child lying blindfolded. Of course, one 
rather naturally reasons that with the child, as with 
an adult, the position and the bandaged eyes would 
soon suffice to develope an Einstellung of expectation of 
being fed. But it is highly probable that these factors 
remained constant throughout the experiment and the 
condition persisting through periods of non-feeding 
soon lost whatever stimulating power it may have had, 
except that it possibly functioned as a stimulus arous- 
ing a state of expectation or alertness. 

One question presents itself, however. The author 
tried this method with the first three children studied. 
Case A was a defective child, almost idiotic and five 
years old. He allowed the bandage to stay on five 
minutes, then began to fuss and tear at it. His hands 
were held down by the nurse, attendant on him, until 
the third feeding was made at the end of 6' 15'' but 
even that did not distract his attention and he began 
crying in earnest and stopped only when the bandage 
was removed. 

Case B was a five-year-old normal child. He was 
told to "lie there quietly" and *Vait a little while," 
when after the second feeding he began pulling at the 
bandage. This kept him from fussing for two minutes 
then he announced he didn't "want to stay there any 
longer." 

Case C was a normal child of fifteen months and she 
cried violently and tried to take the bandage off as 
soon as she had finished tasting the first bit of sweet 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 97 

chocolate given as the stimulus. 

Krasnogorski himself observed in his earlier work 
that crying interfered with the conditioned reflex and 
that renewed experimentation should be delayed until 
the child was once more quiet. This statement may ac- 
count for some of the prolonged intervals (25 min., 15 
min., etc.) that he mentions in his later articles. But 
from another point of view how much better it would 
be to avoid entirely any such emotional change and the 
consequent uncertain but probable modifications in the 
development of the conditioned reflex. This can easily 
be done by making the application of the bandage itself 
the conditioning stimulus. The interval between ex- 
citations is then a so-called "filled" one and may be 
devoted to play or to other experiments with the same 
child. 

This method was the one used in all experiments re- 
ported in this study. The bandage was applied by 
gently sliding it down over the child's eyes from above, 
with a slight but firm pressure of one finger over each 
eye, thus inducing the most certain exclusion of light 
and then the bandage was kept in place SO". In the 
eleventh second the child was fed a bit of sweet cho- 
colate and the bandage was removed at the end of 
the twentieth second. Then the child was allowed to 
sit up and was kept busy with other tests for the in- 
terval that must elapse before the process was re- 
peated. The lying down was itself kept from becom- 
ing the conditioning stimulus by frequently lying the 
child down in the intervals between experiments. The 
three-minute interval was used. That is, it was three 
minutes from the initiation of any one stimulation until 
the beginning of the next stimulation. 

Several factors determined the choice of these time 



98 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

intervals. Ten seconds is the least period of excita- 
tion used by Krasnogorski and it seemed well to use 
a period that would give a basis of direct comparison 
with some of his work. This shortest period was cho- 
sen because of the probability that a finer, more ex- 
tensive series of numerical results could be obtained 
(in terms of the number of applications of stimulus 
necessary to evoke response) if the stimulus were less 
and hence less effective in any one application. 

The three-minute interval was chosen instead of the 
five-, ten- or twenty-minute interval in order to expe- 
dite the development of the association. Probably here, 
too, a finer gradation in number of trials necessary to 
obtain a positive reaction would have been obtained if 
a longer interval had been used but this consideration 
seemed outweighed by the following factors: 

1. The need of finishing each day's work with the 
child before fatigue was sufficient to play an important 
role in results obtained. 

2. The need of finishing the work with each child in 
a small enough number of days so that he would not 
lose interest in the general situation. 

3. The need of developing any standards that might 
be evolved in an expeditious procedure which would be 
short, direct, specific enough for clinical use in case 
Krasnogorski's claims of the diagnostic value of the 
method were confirmed. 

The average length of time a child was to be used 
was set at one-half hour. This allowed for the initial 
procedure and ten repetitions if that number proved 
necessary. In case more were needed the procedure 
was continued at twenty-four-hour intervals until the 
desired result was obtained. The child was considered 
to have learned to associate the bandage with the feed- 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 99 

ing of chocolate when he twice in succession opened his 
mouth for the chocolate before the ten seconds preced- 
ing the stimulation by chocolate had elapsed. 

It was felt necessary to use the two responses because 
sometimes one response might be observed and record- 
ed and considered an opening of the mouth in antici- 
pation of food when it was really a slight yawn, a 
cough, a deep breath, or a laugh. 

The appearance of two consecutive positive reac- 
tions ended the work for that day. 

Twenty-four hours later the second process was car- 
ried out. This was the memorial functioning of the 
association and it was proposed that it be tested by 
the Ersparnis Methode — calculating the number of 
trials less than the number used in developing the asso- 
ciation that were necessary to cause it to function in 
the same manner. Unfortunately any one memory in- 
terval chosen arbitrarily is not apt to be the most effi- 
cient interval. The twenty-four-hour interval was one 
that had best claims for investigation, however, from 
our standpoint. It allowed, as do any of the day in- 
tervals in contrast to the part-day intervals, a second 
experimentation with the child under conditions of 
feeding, rest, and play most nearly approximating 
those of the previous work. It also is an interval short 
enough to be used possibly in the clinical study of 
children, and, as the difficulty of getting children who 
are not under one's immediate control seemingly dou- 
bles with every additional day over which the experi- 
mentation must extend, it seemed practically worth 
studying. Moreover, it may allow for some compari- 
sons with recalls of reagents on other problems where 
the interval of delayed recall most frequently used is 
one of twenty-four hours. 



100 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

As soon as the associative functioning was re-estab- 
lished in the child the third process was begun. This 
is what Krasnogorski called the inhibition and degencr- 
escence of the conditioned reflex. The bandage was 
placed over the child's eyes just the same as when the 
association was developed but this time the child was 
not fed. This was repeated until the anticipatory 
mouth openings and swallowings were entirely absent 
in two successive trials. The association was then con- 
sidered to be inhibited or unlearned to a point below 
the functioning level. From an objective standpoint 
we can not say whether it was really an inhibition that 
was developed or merely a fading out of the association 
previously formed, but the term "unlearning" indicates 
merely the absence of a response while the term "in- 
hibition" more frequently means the restraining action 
of an additional, newly-introduced factor, so it seems 
better to leave the latter term to be applied to the more 
complex Krasnogorski process described in Chapter 
IV, and to designate the third process used in this study 
as "unlearning." 

The number of trials necessary to effect the unlearn- 
ing were in some cases too many to allow of full de- 
velopment in half an hour. The question arose 
whether here as on the learning process the work should 
be suspended until the next day and after due con- 
sideration was answered in the negative. Here we 
are dealing with a process more apt to be unpleasant 
to the child than pleasant. In the learning he has been 
fed every time with a bit of chocolate and learned to 
expect it, here he expects it and doesn't get it. The 
probabilities were that if taken home in that state he 
would be apt to refuse to come back the next day and 
the work would remain unfinished. Also there was the 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 101 

probability that the effect of the partially effected 
unlearning might be strengthened in some and weakened 
in others during the twenty-four-hour interval so that 
we would have to deal with an unknown factor in evalu- 
ating our results. 

Feeling that these considerations were sufficiently im- 
portant to make it worth while risking fatigue the ex- 
periments were continued until the desired results were 
obtained, although every effort was made through va- 
ried plays and games and story-telling to decrease the 
fatigue factor as far as possible. 

For a test of reassociation, the fourth process 
studied, immediately after a three-minute interval had 
elapsed after the completion of the unlearning, the 
stimulus was repeated but this time the child was fed. 
This was repeated until he again reacted positively 
twice in succession. 

A saving of several trials was effected in the follow- 
ing manner : The first time the conditioned reflex func- 
tioned when it was being memorially tested on the sec- 
ond day the child was of course fed but when on a 
successive trial it functioned similarly the child was 
not fed. Thus although the trial gave us our positive 
reaction indicating that the association functioned, yet 
it also became the first in our series of trials for un- 
learning. Likewise the second of two successive trials 
indicating complete unlearning was used as the first 
of the series to correct the unlearning by giving the 
chocolate. Also, no preliminary record was considered 
necessary as indicating the quiescent state of the child 
other than the foreperiod of the first actual trial. 

With this procedure carefully carried out one has 
a quantitive expression of the ability of the individual 
(a) in associative learning, the more rapid the learn- 



lOS CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ing the fewer the number of trials required; (b) in 
memory or forgetting, the fewer the number of trials 
the greater the retention; (c) of the inhibitory effect 
of a change in conditions and hence of unlearning or 
adaptability, the adaptation being greater the fewer 
the number of trials required; and (d) re-association or 
re-learning, this being less difficult the fewer the num- 
ber of trials required. 

The objective method of recording used was a 
slightly modified form of that described by Krasnogor- 
ski. A small receptive disc of a Marey tambour, at- 
tached to a long rubber tube, was placed under the 
hyoid bone and over the thyroid cartilage. This disc 
passed through a slit in a strip of linen and was held 
in place by this strip being wrapped around the child's 
neck. The rubber tube connected with a recording disc 
which recorded all the movements of the throat and 
lower jaw upon a kymograph. This recording appara- 
tus was kept in place throughout the experiment, a pro- 
cedure rendered feasible by having the rubber tubing 
plenty long enough to allow the child free movement 
without his disturbing the adjustment of the record- 
ing end. 

The time was likewise recorded on the kymograph by 
a Jacquet chronometer and an electric indicator con- 
trolled by a telegraph key made it possible to record 
the actual moment in which the food stimulus was 
given, as well as the presentation of other stimuli. 

Another point that had to be considered was the 
method of handling the child himself. This method 
begins logically with the manner of handling the com- 
munity in order to obtain permission to use the children. 
A wrong attitude developed in the parent may not al- 
ways bring a refusal of the use of the child but may 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 103 

instead bring such comment and criticism within the 
family that the child feels the attitude and reacts ac- 
cordingly towards the experimenter. 

Of course with the low grade defectives there was 
little trouble. They were under institutional care and 
consent was readily given by Dr. Fernald when per- 
mission to use them was asked. They themselves were 
too low-grade to seem much influenced by even the pet- 
ting and caresses of their nurses and being in an insti- 
tution were accustomed to the presence of little-known 
faces. Care was taken to visit and study all of them, 
though, before experimenting began and with the two 
of highest grade quite a play intimacy was developed. 

With the normal boy Partil who was used for some 
time the intimacy was developed through two trips to 
his home before he was asked to go to the laboratory, 
but there he made up readily and consented at once 
to come, although his parents thought this a little un- 
usual as he was rather timid. That the relation was 
perfectly normal is shown by the fact that the second 
time I called at his home he was taking a nap and on 
awakening and hearing that I was there he brought his 
shoes and suit in and asked me to help him put them 
on and button the buttons. 

In the attempt to use a large group of children from 
average homes the situation is somewhat more difficult. 
Consequently the experimenter studied first of all the 
village habits and conditions before attempting to gain 
permission to use the children. 

The work was done in a village of about 400 inhabi- 
tants. (1910 census says 241.) The village is subur- 
ban to one of our large eastern cities and has splendid 
railroad service, rendering the metropolis easily access- 
ible for business and recreation. It is also on a State 



104 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

Road which gives rise to heavy automobile traffic and 
makes possible a goodly amount of automobile trade. 
It has a community composed of a large percentage of 
professional men, commuting to the city, a still larger 
group of railroad employees of middle scale — engineers, 
conductors, electrical staff, etc., due to the village be- 
ing the terminal for all suburban trains, and a new 
and growing percentage engaged in cement-block mak- 
ing. Besides these there is a group of some twenty to 
forty men employed by the leading business concern 
of the place, a wholesale and retail flour, feed and lum- 
ber mill and coal yard. The most significant fact per- 
haps is that there are in a literal sense no dependents 
in the community. Some years ago a number of good 
ladies of the place organized a Dorcas Society and 
sewed for the poor, only to find that there were no poor 
to accept the garments when they were made. 

Of course there are those who are poor, but as each 
little house usually has its own garden and as almost 
every one keeps a few chickens, smaller wages suffice 
and the independence and frugality of these poor not 
only makes charity impossible but also shows that they 
are normal individuals even if not well to do. 

No one group, or social level, was used in this experi- 
ment but re-agents were drawn from all as far as pos- 
sible. A couple of rooms near the center of the vil- 
lage were rented and starting with children nearest 
at hand they were sought in an ever-widening circle 
until practically all resources were exhausted. Here 
and there a child was skipped because he was away 
when that part of the village was covered or because 
he lived so far away from all other children as to make 
the trip, proportionately to the need of using him, 
rather a proceeding not worth while. 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 105 

The majority of the people dwelling there were 
known, at least by name, to the experimenter and 
through them the rest were easily met or in many in- 
stances self-introduction worked informally and well. 

The experimenter studied first of all the village hab- 
its. Like true German housewives, since they lived in 
a community where German traditions if not German 
blood flourished, the morning hours were busy ones for 
the most. Housekeeping, cooking, gardening, cleaning, 
washing, made morning calls unsolicited and painfully 
formal. Early afternoon meant children and many 
mothers napping, but about four o'clock the broad 
porches and big or little lawns were in general use. 
Neighborly chats and semi-social trips to the grocery 
store or for the mail showed the village as a place full 
of real live people, but as most of them were financially 
situated so that they did their own cooking, they were 
not apt to be far away for a long time, for the man 
of the house here receives due consideration of his la- 
bours and needs. In the evening coolness the whole 
little family was apt to jaunt out to some farther point 
— the moving picture, the lanes lined with berry bushes 
or the neighboring, more metropolitan, village. 

Consequently the time between four and six, not too 
near six, was chosen as the time to solicit the loan of 
children. Beginning with the children of the "best citi- 
zen" was avoided. Instead I chose to ask the wife of 
the chauffeur of one of the best citizens to lend me her 
three babies. The fact that I'd take them all at once, 
for a whole morning, two days in succession, appealed 
to her gossip-loving, care-hating mind, and she con- 
sented. By the next morning the news of the choice as 
well as the fact that I had asked her to help me get a 
complete list of other children was over the whole vil- 



106 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

lage "circle," for which she helped set the pace. Dur- 
ing the two days I used these children I visited other 
parents in that section, securing their consent and let- 
ting them name any two days that suited them best, 
explaining with emphasis the importance of the sec- 
ond day, and getting acquainted with the children. 
This was not difficult. The news of toys and games 
and of pennies to spend for candy before one came home 
scored every time. 

Whenever there were two or three children under 
eight in the family I tried to use them the same da3^s 
and, if there were only one or two, other children whom 
they knew were taken the same days. I found I could 
handle three in a morning and this number was the 
most satisfactory. If I had only two, one was left 
to play alone while the other was being used. If there 
were three, two played together, although if they were 
very young I had a young girl come to assist by taking 
care of them. If more than three were used the ex- 
periments ran too near breakfast period on one ex- 
treme, and too near lunch time on the other, so that 
satiety and hunger in more extreme forms were intro- 
duced. 

Calling for the children myself gave me a chance to 
get acquainted with them more fully while on the way 
to "my house." Once there, on all pleasant days the 
children helped take the playthings out on to a large 
shady corner porch connected by a glass door with the 
room used for experimenting. In bad weather they 
played in an adjoining room. Sometimes an older sis- 
ter came along. This usually simplified matters but the 
permission was always offered as a great privilege and 
was naturally always so regarded. 

Then the children usually wandered around in the 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 107 

room while I put up windows, smoked the kymograph 
paper, wound up the kymograph, etc., and prepared 
record sheets. They usually asked what the kymo- 
graph was — what it was for, and even if they didn't 
I always explained — explained so as to form an asso- 
ciation fully dissociating its slight noise from the main 
experiment — that I ran it to make the room cooler and 
keep flies and mosquitos out. Then I allowed it to run 
so that they would become accustomed to the noise. 
The rest of the apparatus was never taboo — any ques- 
tions and curiosity were eliminated before we began 
experimenting. 

The next question was how to attack the work itself. 
Here a consideration of the fundamental nature of 
the child gives us as an attribute most likely to form 
an adequate basis for handling him, his instinctive love 
for play. So our whole procedure became a game. The 
children were told that I wanted to play something with 
each one alone and so I'd take Marie first and then 
James. The others could play house, tea party or 
what they wished on the porch. Schmitt also recog- 
nizes this for she writes: "With him (the child) the mo- 
tive most conducive to natural reaction, uncomplicated 
by disturbing emotions, is the play motive" (149, p. 
13). Two factors had to be watched, however. The 
toys must not be given in such profusion as to make 
a child lose all interest in what might be going on in- 
doors and the play indoors must be made sufficiently 
attractive to make him eager to come back a second 
day. 

The chocolate stimulus itself was quite effective in 
this way and then if there were any things a particu- 
lar child disliked in the secondary tests they were left 
until the second day. Also on our way home we usually 



108 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

stopped at the corner drug store and each youngster 
had an ice cream cone. By the time he had finished 
this he was home and the recollections of any unpleas- 
ant details of fatigue were lost in the anticipation of 
another such treat. Also the fact that I treated their 
children in such an unnecessary fashion made many 
of the mothers consider themselves under more heavy 
obligation to let me have the children the second day. 

The most conclusive proof I can state to the effect 
that what extra trouble there was was worth while is 
that no mother refused to let me borrow her children, 
although in one case the father had to be consulted 
before she'd say yes. Moreover, of all the children 
tested one day, none failed to come the second day 
except one little boy that I refused to take because he 
was ill. The rest all wanted to come back again, of- 
fering to come with other children, to help me, to put 
the toys away or even in several instances declaring 
they wanted to come and live with me. 

During the two-and-a-half-minute intervals in all of 
these processes a definite procedure was followed. Bit 
by bit the Binet tests and those additional tests neces- 
sary for the Point Scale evaluation, were given. The 
Healy Construction Puzzles A and B, the Healy Foal 
and Mare and School Puzzles, the Goddard Adaptation 
Board, and Goddard modification of the Seguin Form 
Board were also used. Also each child was measured 
for standing and sitting height, weight, dynamometer 
measurement of grip with the right and left hand and 
lung capacity as measured by the wet spirometer. 

The intelligence of the parents was also rather point- 
edly observed during the visits to the homes, which 
also gave significant facts regarding each child's en- 
vironment. These estimations of intelligence of the pa- 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 109 

rents as average or not were corroborated by appeal 
to the family physician of the village, and in still 
doubtful instances by appeal to the leading business 
man of the village who was in financial touch with prac- 
tically all of them. 

One requirement that is harder to fulfill when work- 
ing with children than it is when working with adults 
is that of uniform verbal Aufgabe. Even though the 
task itself may be uniformly explained or directed the 
child cannot and does not (nor need he) understand the 
purpose as even an untrained adult does. He asks 
questions and they must be answered; he raises objec- 
tions, they must be met; he modifies his procedure to 
suit his own pleasure. The control of all this must 
not be one of forcing into a narrow and fixed groove 
all responses so that they may be used but in a quick 
adaptation of non-essentials which £re kept before the 
child while the process under observation is tested un- 
der unmodified conditions. One may have to pet, coax, 
bribe, or even with some children threaten a little but 
I write this last word rather hesitatingly. In most 
children threatening of any sort upsets the normal 
poise. Now and then one finds, however, the child 
who may be threatened by the idea of how badly he 
would feel if he failed, if some one else, a concrete per- 
son, did better than he. Or one finds the child who 
may need to be told that we won't need him unless he 
tries harder. But usually the work should be held 
as a privilege and open choice on the material or ac- 
tivity to fill the rest intervals will lead the child to 
feel he is perfectly free in the whole procedure. One 
of the chief advantages of this method of conditioned 
reflexes is its utter lack of any need for verbal direc- 
tions, the child formulates for himself his response to 



110 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

a situation. 

Besides the kymograph record of the movements, the 
observed movements not only of mouth and throat but 
of the whole body, any unusual disturbance and any 
verbal or behavior reactions were noted immediately 
after each trial. 

The extra tests, which consisted of all the more gen- 
erally used clinic tests for mental diagnosis that are 
applicable with such young subjects, were given in a 
standard way, the one adapted by the experimenter 
after five years of experience with such tests. 

In using the Binet Scale the Goddard (58, 60, 62) 
Revision was used throughout and supplemented, as 
is done in the Vineland Laboratory and the Massachu- 
setts School for Feeble-Minded, by the Binet-Simon 
series of six easier tests for idiots (57). 

The Point Scale was used as accurately as possible 
according to directions given in the article in print 
at that time (190), as the Yerkes-Bridges (191) book 
on the Scale had not then been issued from the press. 
Where the questions in the Binet and the Point Scale 
were similar but varied in difficulty of presentation, the 
more difficult form was given first and if that failed 
the less difficult method was used, credit being given 
accordingly. 

The Healy Boards were all four presented to the 
child one after another with the directions suggested by 
Healy and Fernald (75). Minute records were not 
made of the errors but merely a record of the total 
length of time and the type of procedure, although if 
Schmitt's (149) standardization had appeared before 
the experiments had been made I would undoubtedly 
have followed her suggestion and recorded the time 
on the triangles in the Foal and Mare Puzzle sepa- 



METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE 111 

rately. 

The Adaptation Board was used as Goddard (63) 
suggests but with these modifications and additions. 
Due to the brief, indirect directions given it may be 
possible that a child fails on the first turn because of 
lack of or rather misdirected attention. Hence, if a 
child failed on the first trial but succeeded on the sec- 
ond, another trial was given on the turn from lower 
left to lower right. Then several new moves were also 
added to the board's use. These are ones suggested 
but not standardized by Goddard (63, p. 188). The 
third turn, or first added turn, was from lower left to 
lower right and on to upper right without stopping. 
The fourth turn was from upper right to upper left to 
lower left to lower right without stopping. These ad- 
ditions allow of a wider use of the test and finer gra- 
dation of ability. 

The Form Board was used as Goddard (61) and Syl- 
vester (168) suggest. It was given three times the 
first day and, on the last nineteen children, three times 
on the second day. This usage on the second day sug- 
gested itself at that point as another corroboration of 
the memorial regression of learning. This board, as 
well as all other of the tests were presented to all the 
children used, regardless of any doubts the experi- 
menter had, due to the age of the child, as to its ability 
to perform the required tasks. The time was recorded 
with a stop-watch and the child urged to hurry and 
make speed a part of his goal-idea. 

Height standing and sitting were measured in milli- 
meters and expressed to the nearest centimeter. 

Weight was measured in kilograms to the nearest 
tenth. 

Grip was measured in kilograms to the nearest tenth 



112 ! CHILD BEHAVIOR 

upon an adjustable Smedley dynamometer. 

Lung capacity was measured by the wet spirometer 
and expressed in liters to the nearest hundredth. 

With exactly the same procedure another group of 
such children as tested normal or nearly so by the Binet 
and performance tests but who were, because of hered- 
ity or a-social reactions, suspected of mental defect 
was studied. These children, seven in number, were 
inmates or observation cases at the Massachusetts State 
School for the Feeble-Minded. 

Also, two children were accessible who had been clini- 
cally studied and diagnosed as not feeble-minded but 
as "normal on all tests." These children had been taken 
to the clinic because of suspected defect due to lack 
of ability to get along in school. 



CHAPTER VI 

PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR 
INDICATIONS 

THE preliminary investigation of the use of Kras- 
nogorski's method was twofold. First a study 
was made of seven young defective children who were 
available. It seemed feasible that a method whch could 
be applied with definite results upon such low-grade 
children would be applicable without difficulty upon 
normal children; also, if Krasnogorski's statements 
were true, the conditioned reflexes would here be ob- 
tained only with greater difficulty than upon normals 
and hence their development would allow more experi- 
mentation with the method itself. 

Secondly, an extensive study was made of one child, 
endeavoring to develop a number of the various mechan- 
isms, but here again primarily with the aim of study- 
ing and understanding the method. 

The work upon the seven low-grade defectives in- 
volved two processes, learning and forgetting. 

Although the method used with this group varied 
somewhat from individual to individual, due to the fact 
that the procedure was one arbitrarily determined yet 
the results seem worth presenting in detail, chiefly be- 
cause they form the basis for the definite procedure 
followed upon the larger group of children used in the 
later experiments. 

The plan begun with was to leave the child lying 
113 



114 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

on a low couch (all but two of the seven studied spent 
their whole day lying down or tied in a chair) and to 
apply the bandage as previously described. Then after 
5 seconds to stimulate the right arm above the elbow 
for 10 seconds and in the sixteenth second to feed a bit 
of sweet chocolate, to be exact, a piece one centimeter 
square. 

The first modification came in the food stimulus. 
Three of the seven children refused to eat candy and 
were accustomed to liquid foods only. This fact was 
ascertained beforehand. Each was then experimen- 
tally fed a bit of chocolate and when it was definitely 
refused a new stimulus, sweetened water, was adopted. 
Two of them took this readily from a spoon but the 
third refused this when made from white sugar and 
took it only when it was made from brown sugar to 
which he had become accustomed. It was thought bet- 
ter to use this rather than honey, which was used by 
Krasnogorski, as honey is not only an unknown taste 
quality to some children and not always liked when 
first tasted, but the use of it is apt to lead rapidly to 
a feeling of satiety, at least such is the report of a 
number of older persons, and our stimulus should be 
just sufficient to evoke with the sensation a pleasant 
affective toning making the subject desirous of more. 

The next modification was that regarding the use of 
the bandage. It seemed highly probable that these de- 
fective children were so low grade that they might 
easily be persuaded to lie with the bandage over their 
eyes throughout the experiment. Experience proved 
the opposite. Their negative reaction to the bandage, 
if violence of behavior be a just criterion, was far 
greater than their positive reaction to the sweet fed 
to them. Two of them cried out at first when the 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 115 

bandage was put on and all of the others, even the 
very lowest grade ones, tried to get it off after they 
had been fed and lain a little while. 

Since the difference in reactions is marked in a quali- 
tative as well as a quantitative manner it seems best to 
describe the results by the individual cases. 

1. Leitha was a little girl, aged 55 months, born in 
this country of English parentage. Peculiarity mani- 
fested itself through bumping of the head, crying and 
convulsive muscular attacks, etc., between the ages of 
one and two. She walked at 25 months but her gait 
is still straddling and uncertain. She has so far not 
formed any habits of cleanliness, does not talk and has 
to be fed with a spoon. Indeed if she is hungry and 
food is on the table within reach she does not know 
enough to take it. She does not seem to recognize the 
nurses who are with her the whole time. She has been 
diagnosed as a low-grade idiot with a mentality of less 
than one year. She has not improved since these ex- 
periments were made. 

I began trying to develop a conditioned opening of 
the mouth through excluding light by a bandage with 
a cutaneous stimulation upon the right arm above the 
elbow. At first she was rather restless and grew mark- 
edly so if the bandage was kept on after she was fed 
and had eaten the candy. Ten trials were given the 
first day without the slightest indication of an associa- 
tion having been made. On the next day she lay quiet 
for the first two trials and on the third trial opened 
her mouth, grinding her teeth and said "eh-ah" before 
she was fed. This was repeated the fourth time, so 
the conditioned association had been developed in 14 
trials. 

The conditioned reflex was stimulated and functioned 



116 ) CHILD BEHAVIOR 

without defect six more times that day, marking 10 
trials in all, then the child was allowed to rest. The 
reaction was, however, to the application of the band- 
age before cutaneous stimulation was applied and so 
during the rest of the work upon her the bandage alone 
was used. 

Twenty-four hours later the procedure was repeat- 
ed. The first trial she was quiet but on the second 
trial she at once began smiling, making noises and 
opening her mouth. This happened on three successive 
trials. 

After another forty-eight hours, when the process 
was again tried, there was no response upon the first 
two trials but upon the third trial she opened her 
mouth after nearly ten seconds of stimulation by the 
bandage, similarly on the fourth trial, while on the 
fifth trial she began smacking her lips as soon as the 
bandage was put over her eyes. 

She was allowed to rest 4 days and then the ex- 
periment was repeated. The child was not in good 
condition for the work. She was very restless and con- 
tinually falling into the masturbating movements char- 
acteristic of idiots, grinding her teeth at the same time. 
She seemed, however, to react positively upon the sev- 
enth trial and this is probably accurate as there was 
no difficulty in deciding that she had not reacted posi- 
tively before and as this seeming reaction was present 
in three succeeding trials. 

Twenty-four hours later six trials were necessary for 
functioning and this functioning continued through 
the four succeeding trials given on that day. 

Forty-eight hours later 4 trials brought the re- 
quired reaction. 

With Leitha, and on the others of this group as 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 117 

well, an effort was made to keep the number of trials 
from day to day at either five or ten. This proved 
disadvantageous and was not tried in any later series. 
One of the disadvantages is the increased difficulty in 
calculating the number of trials necessary for memo- 
rial functioning and saving. To do this we must count 
all the trials after the proper functioning on a given 
day and add them to the number required for func- 
tioning upon the next day in order to get the full 
series. 

If we do this with the data obtained upon Leitha we 
have the following results : — 

For Learning the number of trials required is 14. 
For Memory the number of trials required is 9 after 24 hours. 
For Memory the number of trials required is 6 after 48 hours. 
For Memory the number of trials required is 9 after 96 hours. 
For Memory the number of trials required is 8 after 24 hours. 
For Memory the number of trials required is 8 after 24 hours. 

If, however, we disregard the trials given after the 
conditioned reflex functioned on a given day and count 
only the number of trials necessary to re-establish it 
the next we have the following number of trials re- 
quired : 

After an interval, since last functioning, of 24 hrs. — 3 trials were needed 
After an interval, since last functioning, of 48 hrs. — 4 trials were needed 
After an interval, since last functioning, of 96 hrs. — 8 trials were needed 
After an interval, since last functioning, of 24 hrs. — 6 trials were needed 
After an interval, since last functioning, of 48 hrs. — 4 trials were needed 

These figures vary much more nearly as the time fac- 
tor, and, although any deduction is merely a surmise, 
seem to indicate that the habituation of an idiot child 
to a process newly acquired is not greatly helped by in- 
creasing the number of times the habit is exercised any 



118 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

one day but that functioning at short intervals is more 
important. This agrees with the conclusions reached 
by those studying the relative value of grouped a^id dis- 
tributed repetitions for learning but it is also probable 
that the effects of fatigue may be more marked here 
than they would be in normal subjects or adults and 
so render the last trials on the day of learning rela- 
tively weak in effect. 

S. Pasha was a boy about 50 months old, born in 
America of Armenian parentage. He is a helpless di- 
plegiac, not able to move much. He is not clean, cannot 
feed himself, seems to be able to understand a few 
words. Diagnosed as an idiot with a mentality of one 
year. No improvement since. 

Since he eats only liquid food he was given sweetened 
water. With him I used bandage on 5", followed by 
stimulation of upper right arm with camel's hair brush 
for 10'', then feeding in the sixteenth second. 

He developed the association between bandage and 
feeding in the fourth trial but from the fifth trial on did 
not begin reacting until brush touched the arm. 

The results obtained with him were as follows : 

Length of interval since last pre- 
vious trial 24 hrs. 48 hrs. 96 hrs. 

1st 2nd 
trial trial 

Number of trials needed on day 

of new trial 3 3 4 2 

Number of trials of over-learn- 
ing that had been given on the 
day of last previous trial 4 2 2 1 

Total number of trials needed 

for functioning 7 5 6 3 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 119 

Learning to associate bandage and feeding took five 
trials while learning to associate bandage, brushing the 
arm and food took six trials. The memorial function- 
ing took a varied number of trials in the different 
length intervals and even in two different trials after 
the same length intervals. 

3. Ahil was a boy 51 months old, born in America 
of Russian parentage. He was a seven-months baby, 
is spastic in both legs and rather microcephalic. He 
is unclean and does not feed himself. He has been 
diagnosed as an idiot with a mentality of between one 
and two years of age. He showed no signs of improve- 
ment in the year between the time of the experiments 
and his death. 

Here, also, an attempt was made to develop the dis- 
criminating reflex to the cutaneous stimulation. Dur- 
ing the ten trials on the first day no response to the 
situation developed but on the second trial the next 
day the child reached up and tried to pull the bandage 
off after he was fed. He had not tried to pull it off 
before. This happened throughout the rest of the 
trials that day. There was no reaction to the bandage 
when applied nor to the cutaneous stimulation. 

After twenty-four hours he took the bandage off on 
the second trial. Two days later he removed it on 
the first trial, and 4 days later and again after 4 days 
he removed it upon the first trial. Throughout he 
showed no other reaction to the situation. After the 
experiment was finished it seemed advisable to examine 
his skin sensitivity with the result that we found him 
almost completely anaesthetic and even analgesic, ex- 
cept on and around his lips, to such minimal stimuli 
as were being used in the experiment. The motor re- 
action of removing the bandage is, however, as good 



120 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

as any food reaction for the study of the learning 
process and shows here the fumbling but sure adjust- 
ment of even a faulty organism to environmental con- 
ditions. Summarizing, we see that the association de- 
veloped in 18 trials while memorial functioning was as 
follows : 

Length of interval since last 

experiment 24 hrs. 48 hrs. 96 hrs. 

1st 2nd 
trial trial 

Number of trials needed to es- 
tablish functioning on day 
of re-trial 3 2 2 2 

Number of trials of over-learn- 
ing given on day of previous 
learning 7 2 3 3 

Total number of trials given 10 4 5 5 

Here again we see that the regularity of the num- 
ber of trials given at each sitting interferes with a 
direct study of the number required for actual reten- 
tion and probably is in excess as the association is 
found to function in the first two trials after 2- and 4- 
day intervals since last functioning. 

4. Jorsi is a boy 60 months of age, American born 
of Italian parents. He is a swarthy youngster covered 
all over with fine black hair. He is rachitic and the 
sternum protrudes sharply. He has a slight lumbar 
scoliosis and enlarged epiphyses of the wrists, elbows, 
ankles and knees ; has also umbilical hernia and large 
tonsils and adenoids. He is clean and feeds himself 
with a spoon. He can walk by pushing against a chair ; 
plays real nicely and with good coordination with small 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 121 

objects. Diagnosed as an idiot with a mentality of 
1 ^ years by the Binet. (No marked improvement be- 
fore death, which occurred recently.) 

With Jorsi, also, an attempt was made to develop 
the conditioned reflex to a cutaneous stimulation. At 
first he gave no reaction except to try to get the band- 
age off even before the feeding, then on the ninth trial 
he lay quiet but took the bandage off at once after he 
was fed. This happened on the tenth trial also. After 
twenty-four hours he removed the bandage on the sec- 
ond trial but not until the third trial, or thirteenth in 
all, did he open his mouth before he was fed. Even 
then this reflex functioned irregularly, being firmly es- 
tablished only after the nineteenth trial, although the 
reaction of removing the bandage functioned regularly 
after the twelfth trial. 

After another 24 hours he removed the bandage on 
the first trial but opened his mouth only upon the sec- 
ond trial. 

Forty-eight hours later both mouth opening and re- 
moving the bandage came at the correct time in the 
first trial. One point is to be noted, however. At no 
time was there any reaction to the cutaneous reaction 
as distinguished from the application of the bandage. 
His mouth opened as wide before the brush was applied 
as after. He was not suff^ering from anaesthesia. 

Considering the development of the association be- 
tween food and removing bandage we find establishing 
it took 10 trials, while that between bandage and feed- 
ing took 14 trials, then functioned irregularly but 
after 19 trials is fully established. The memorial 
functioning is as follows, the numbers in parentheses 
being for bandage-food associations, the other for feed- 
ing-remove bandage associations: 



122 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

Interval since last experiment 24 hrs. 48 hrs. 

No. of trials given on day of re-trial 2 (3) 2 (2) 
No. of trials of over-learning given 

in previous experiment '^ (^) 3(3) 

Total number of trials used 9 (9) 5 (6) 

Jorsi was sick when the time came for a 96-hour 
trial of memorial functioning and so was not tested 
after that interval. 

5. John was a boy about 36 months old, born in 
America of Italian parentage. He was reported as 
"peculiar from the time of birth." He has a cleft 
palate and hare lip but both soft and hard palate have 
been repaired. He does not walk or talk but feeds 
himself with a spoon. Is diagnosed as an idiot with 
a mentality of 1 ^ by Binet and as probably hydro- 
cephalic. He has since died. No microscopical findings 
are as yet available upon any of the three who have 
died but the description of gross physical attributes has 
not been reversed by the autopsy studies. 

An attempt was made to develop an association be- 
tween cutaneous stimulation and feeding. On and af- 
ter the fifth trial he reacted to the application of the 
bandage by opening his mouth with mouthing and suck- 
ing movements. After three more trials the mouthing 
was deferred until the cutaneous stimulation was ap- 
plied, or the first type of association was formed in 6 
and the second in 9 trials. 

After twenty-four hours the cutaneous-feeding asso- 
ciation functioned on the second and successive trials. 
After another twenty-four hours the cutaneous-feeding 
association functioned at once. After 48 hours the 
bandage-feeding association functioned at once but it 
took five trials to redevelop the cutaneous-feeding asso- 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 123 

elation. After 96 hours more the cutaneous-feeding 
association functioned immediately. The results are as 
follows, figures representing bandage-feeding or band- 
age-open mouth associations being in parentheses : 

Length of time since last ex- 
periment 24 hrs. 48 hrs. 96 hrs. 

1st 2nd 
trial trial 

No. of trials needed on day of 

re-trial 3-2 5 (2) 2 

No. of trials of over-learning 

previously given 1-2 3(3) 

Total number of trials inducing 

the reaction 4-4 8 (5) 2 

6. Jock is a boy 34 months old, American born of 
American parents. He had convulsions when about 18 
months old, but probably was not normal before that 
time. What is known of his parents is not very much 
in their favor, being merely that they have never lived 
long enough in any one place to have legal residence 
there. The child is somewhat undersized, does not 
talk, is not clean in his habits, learned to walk at two 
years of age but is rather unsteady in his gait. He 
feeds himself with a spoon. Is diagnosed as an imbe- 
cile with a present mentality of about two years. 

The experience with the preceding cases led to a 
modification of our procedure here. No use was made 
of the cutaneous stimulation at first but an attempt 
was made to establish the association between the band- 
age and feeding, the bandage being kept on ten seconds 
before the food was given. 

Only five trials were given the first day as Jock rather 



lU CHILD BEHAVIOR 

disliked the bandage although he seemed to like the 
candy. The second day ten more were given but with- 
out any reaction before the feeding. On the third day 
he opened his mouth anticipating feeding upon the sec- 
ond and successive trials, making 18 in all for the learn- 
ing. Seven more trials were given that day, all with 
positive reactions, indeed before the last trial, during 
the play interval, he managed to get possession of my 
handkerchief, put it on the back of his head and opened 
his mouth, evidently for candy. 

After 24 hours the association functioned at once 
and was strengthened throughout five trials. Then in 
the sixth trial for that day a double procedure was 
tried. Period a, the bandage was put on 10 seconds, 
no candy given, and it was taken off. Period b, after 
5 seconds it was put on again, and cutaneous stimula- 
tion applied at the same time, candy being given at 
the end of 10 seconds. 

Immediately after this first trial Jock took another 
brush with which he had been punching holes into paper 
and rubbed his own arm. 

In the next trial he stretched out his arm as soon 
as I put the bandage on and opened his mouth, not dis- 
criminating periods a and b. This happened in the 
next trial but in the last two trials of that day he lay 
absolutely without reaction in both periods. 

After 24* hours he reacted only when touched by 
the brush in the second and successive trials. In the 
eighth trial for that day he developed a new reaction. 
As soon as the bandage was put on he would stretch his 
arm out towards me, although in stimulating it, it had 
always been left in its natural position alongside his 
body, and then after it was touched he would open his 
mouth. 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 125 

After twenty-four hours more, when tried again, he 
was not very well but seemed to want to go through our 
game, running to me as soon as he saw me coming. Dis- 
crimination seemed lost as he would open his mouth 
before as well as after the cutaneous stimulation. His 
own activity, however, showed that some sort of an 
association was there, for as he sat playing on the 
couch he put a handkerchief on his head and tried to 
rub his hand with a pencil, then wanted me to take it, 
and, when I did, he lay down and opened his mouth. 

Two days later no reaction was obtained which 
lacked discrimination and this correct reaction ap- 
peared also upon presentation of the cutaneous stimu- 
lation, and to it only, 48 hours after this first 48- 
hour trial. 

7. George was a boy 73 months old, American bom 
of French-Canadian parents. He was a seven-months 
baby, his mother was alcoholic and has since disap- 
peared, while his father is in a Home of Correction. 
The child's defect was noticed at one year of age. 
He began to walk at three years of age. He says a 
few sounds, feeds himself with a spoon and is clean in 
his personal habits. Has chronic ringworm of scalp, 
masturbates, is very nervous and excitable, although 
usually very good tempered. He talks incessantly in a 
jargon of his own, tries to imitate sounds but does not 
attempt a systematic use of even the few words he 
knows. His coordination of eye and hand is very good, 
and he seems to notice a great deal in his environment. 
He has been diagnosed as an imbecile with a present 
mentality of between two and three years. 

The same method was used with him as with case 6. 
At first he tried to remove the bandage before he was 
fed but gradually this activity disappeared and after 8 



126 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

trials he had learned to remove it after he was fed 
but made no attempt to do so before he was fed. Not 
until the second day did he open his mouth before the 
feeding, but it developed in the first two trials on that 
day, taking twelve trials in all, but on the second trial 
that day he stopped removing the bandage and only 
re-developed this reaction in connection with opening 
his mouth upon the fifth and sixth trials of that day. 
After that the series worked as if automatically. I 
would place the bandage on his eyes, his mouth would 
open, I would give the chocolate, his hand would re- 
move the bandage and then, usually, he would laugh. 

After 24 hours this series functioned once. Then 
an attempt was made to develop the inhibition of the 
mouth opening unless the cutaneous stimulus accom- 
panied the bandage by the procedure of alternation used 
and described in case 6, Jock. At first he opened his 
mouth under conditions of both the a and the h periods. 
On the eighth trial he opened his mouth once when the 
bandage only was used, then closed it, opened it also in 
h of that trial and moved his arm as the brush touched 
it. In trials nine and ten he did not open his mouth 
for either condition but as he made no attempt to re- 
move the bandage it seems obvious that he in some way 
anticipated food. 

On the first trial the next day he opened his mouth 
in period a and was not fed, then kept it closed for &. 
On the second trial his reaction was the same. On the 
third trial he made no response in period a but opened 
his mouth once in period h. In trials four, five, six and 
seven he was quiet during period a but opened his mouth 
during cutaneous stimulation, i. e., period h. This shows 
beautifully the various stages of development of a dis- 
crimination or of inhibition to one group of conditions, 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 19,1 

mentioned by Krasnogorski. But this seeming discrimi- 
nation might be due to an established rhythm of no 
response — response, consequently, in the eighth trial the 
cutaneous stimulus was given at once, a period being 
omitted, and the correct reaction appeared, while in 
trials nine and ten the a period was used without evok- 
ing response which functioned correctly in the b period. 

After 24 hours the reaction was absent from both a 
and b periods for two trials but re-developed in b in the 
third trial with the addition that he would stretch out 
his arm at right angles with his body and say "la-la- 
na-na" before the cutaneous stimulation began. This 
occurred regularly during seven succeeding trials given 
that day. 

After 48 hours there was no response upon a first 
trial but the series of reactions appeared upon the sec- 
ond and succeeding trials. On the fourth trial, before 
it was time, he lay down, tried to put a bandage on his 
eyes, stretched out his arm and opened his mouth. 
Forty-eight hours later he repeated this same series of 
acts as soon as I began working with him. 

This series convinced me that the mechanism of a 
conditioned reflex or stimulus-reaction association could 
be easily developed with even young children, but also 
showed that the conditions were more complex than had 
been supposed while the variations in details of method 
loomed up as innumerable. But before attempting to 
determine just which points would best repay for a 
quantitative and detailed study, another series of pre- 
liminary experiments, this time a developmental one, 
was carried out upon one and the same child. 

Partil was 65 months old when I began working with 
him. He was unusually well developed physically for 
his age but very nervous, given to small twitching move- 



128 . CHILD BEHAVIOR 

merits of which he seemed unconscious. By the Binet 
tests he tested 7 ^, accomplishing in all 34 points. On 
the Bridges-Yerkes he scaled 32 points. He could not 
do the Healy Construction Puzzles A or B, nor the 
Foal and Mare Puzzle without help. The School Room 
Puzzle he succeeded in completing but with the blocks 
for the window and blackboard spaces interchanged, nor 
did he notice this error until it was called to his at- 
tention. He learned rapidly, however, and did all of 
these without difficulty when given a second trial. 

He had been accustomed to having the bandage of 
the receptive Marey tambour around his neck while 
he played in the laboratory and did the various form- 
boards, also to having the bandage over his eyes at ir- 
regular intervals while the kymograph and chronome- 
ter, separated from the couch where he played by a 
screen, were kept running during the whole fore-period. 

The reaction to cutaneous stimulation with the eyes 
bandaged was first developed by putting the bandage on 
and after 5 seconds starting the cutaneous stimulation, 
then feeding ten seconds later. This conditioned reflex 
functioned on the fourth and fifth trials. Then work 
for that day ceased. After M hours the retention 
value of the association was studied. The first trial 
found the child very quiet, on the second trial slight 
twitchings and openings of the mouth were noticed 
while on the third trial the mouth openings were very 
marked and breathing was heavy enough to be recorded 
in the curve of throat and mouth openings. That the 
child anticipated candy may be seen by his question as 
to where the candy came from which he answered for 
himself by associating it with the black kymograph for 
he said, "Oh, I see, that (the kymograph) turns and it 
comes out of there (pointing in the top) and you give 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 129 

it to me." After forty-eight hours the association func- 
tioned slightly on the first trial and markedly on the 
second and third trials. Owing to the child's going 
away for Christmas work stopped at this point and was 
resumed after an interval of 25 days. 

While I was adjusting the apparatus the first day 
after this interval Partil said, "I know what that feels 
like." "What does it feel like.?", I asked. "Chocolate," 
he answered. "Why".? "I don't know." An attempt 
was then made to test the functioning strength of the 
association previously established between the cutane- 
ous stimulation and the mouth opening. Upon the first 
trial there was no reaction except slight general move- 
ments of the body, twitching of the hands, etc. Upon 
the second trial very definite mouth openings appeared 
but they appeared in the period before the tactual stim- 
ulation, immediately after the bandage was adjusted, as 
well as in the later period. This condition persisted in 
the third trial. In the fourth trial the reaction 
occurred during the cutaneous stimulation only. As 
the child seemed very tired the day's experiments were 
discontinued at this point. 

After 24 hours the correct reaction occurred upon 
the first trial. Then an attempt was made to determine 
specificity or localization for the cutaneous stimulation. 
So far cutaneous stimulations had always been applied 
to a definite place, i. e., the inner side of the right arm 
just above the elbow. Now the same place on the left 
arm was also stimulated. The stimulus was applied 
10'' on the left arm, then 10" on the right arm, then 
the child was fed. The first time there was no reaction 
except a slight opening of the mouth at the moment of 
change from the left to the right arm, although 
throughout the child's body was stiff and tense. 



130 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

In the succeeding trials 5'' was allowed to elapse be- 
tween the stimulation on the left and right arms in 
order to reduce any shock of change. On the first of 
these trials there was no reaction except a slight stiffen- 
ing and extending of the right arm before the brush 
was applied to it, then a very faint swallowing move- 
ment after it had been applied about five seconds. On 
the next or in all the third trial for specificity there was 
more definite reaction but only to the correct stimula- 
tion. The indications are that specificity as such, at 
least right-left specificity had developed with the con- 
ditioned reflex itself, although all reaction was tem- 
porarily inhibited by the introduction of the new area 
of stimulation. 

After 24 hours specificity in reaction occurred in the 
first trial, then the conditions were complicated even 
more. The cutaneous stimulus was applied for 10" to 
the left cheek, with a marked reaction. Then five sec- 
onds of no cutaneous stimulation intervened during 
which period the reaction persisted but gradually di- 
minished, then the right cheek was stimulated for 10'', 
again with violent reaction, then 5" intermission fol- 
lowed and finally came 10'' stimulation of the right arm 
without any reaction except very heavy breathing. In 
the next trial the same order of stimulation prevailed 
except that 10" stimulation of the left arm was also 
introduced between the stimulation on the cheeks and 
that on the right arm. Reaction was marked to all 
stimulations applied except to that on the right arm 
to which there was no reaction. In the next trial the 
intermissions were omitted to shorten the series and 10" 
stimulation given on each of the following places — left 
cheek, forehead, right cheek, left arm, right arm, with- 
out arousing reaction to any except the new area, i. e., 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 131 

the forehead. The child now seemed tired, said he 
wanted to go up stairs and see the toys, so only one 
more series was tried. This time the same places were 
stimulated as in the last trial preceding but only S" 
stimulation on each, except on the right arm where the 
usual 10" was given. No reaction occurred except to 
the stimulation on the right arm and that developed 
within the first two seconds. 

The next day another attempt was made to deter- 
mine specificity. In the first trial there was a general 
reaction to all cutaneous stimulation of cheeks, fore- 
head and both arms. This persisted in the second trial 
and was accompanied by marked tension of the whole 
body. In the third trial only the forehead and right 
arm were stimulated and the reaction was much more 
marked to the arm stimulation. On the fourth trial all 
areas were again stimulated but reaction was rather 
faint except to that of the right arm which this time 
was very violent. 

A four days interval now elapsed while Partil was 
away. 

On the next day of experimentation the development 
of specificity of reaction was again undertaken. On 
the first trial successive stimulation of the left arm, 
forehead, right cheek, left cheek, right arm for ten 
seconds each brought absolutely no reaction. Upon the 
second trial reaction occurred to all except stimulation 
of the left arm. Upon a third trial there was no re- 
action to touching the left arm, forehead and right arm 
and almost none to the stimulation upon the cheeks. 
Upon the fourth trial there was reaction only to stimu- 
lation upon the right arm and this reaction was accom- 
panied by a smile. This discrimination was not abso- 
lutely perfected, however, but in the fifth trial reaction 



132 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

occurred to the forehead stimulation also, while com- 
plete discrimination functioned in the sixth trial. This 
fluctuation is most interesting in connection with the 
following information. During the four days he was 
away Partil had been to visit at a place which aroused 
an old phobia that he had had from the age of two. 
Since his return he had been nervous and excitable, had 
not slept well and had refused to sleep in his room 
alone. 

Two days later he seemed to be in far better condi- 
tion, although he was not yet sleeping well, and came 
again to the laboratory. Another attempt was made 
at determining a specific reaction to the cutaneous stim- 
ulation. The skin was stimulated upon the left arm, 
left cheek, forehead, right cheek and right arm. In all 
seven trials were given that day. In the first trial the 
child was passive except for a very faint reaction to the 
stimulation of the left arm and left cheek. In the 
second trial there was a slight correct reaction to the 
touch upon the right arm. There was no reaction at 
all during the third and fourth trials, but in the fifth 
trial the child reacted to all stimuli, while in the sixth 
and seventh trials he was again absolutely quiescent. 

The next day, after the first night of real rest which 
he had had since his trip and when for the first time 
he had consented to sleep in his own room, specificity 
was again studied. Upon the first trial all five places 
of stimulus application were used and all were reacted 
to with violent twitchings and quiverings of the body 
but neither here nor in any other trial made that day 
was Partil's mouth opened once, all reaction being vio- 
lent body twitchings. In the second trial only the left 
arm, right cheek and right arm were touched but all 
gave the reaction. In the third and. fourth, trials the 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 133 

whole five places were touched and both times the re- 
action was general. In the fifth trial the bandage alone 
was sufficient to give marked reaction which increased 
when the left arm was touched and continued about the 
same for the stimulation of the right arm. In the 
sixth trial there was no reaction to bandage or the 
touch upon the left arm or left cheek but only to the 
conditioning stimulation of the right arm. In the sev- 
enth trial this specificity was lacking and response 
occurred to the bandage itself then to left arm and 
forehead stimulation as well as to right arm stimula- 
tion. Work stopped at this point until the next day 
when four more trials were given but the results were 
all still non-specific. 

No more attempts were made at developing speci- 
ficity of the skin stimulus but instead the next day an 
attempt was made at the development of inhibition or 
unlearning of the response which had become so gen- 
eral. The cutaneous stimulation and bandage were 
applied ten seconds and the child was not fed. This 
was repeated at the same three minute interval used to 
develop the reaction. After 6 trials the child was quiet 
and on the seventh or second quiet trial he was again 
fed. The next trial showed a very convulsive reaction 
but this was as much to the bandage as to the bandage 
plus the cutaneous stimulus. 

The question then arose of developing discrimination 
between these two. The bandage was at first an indif- 
ferent factor having been rendered so by habituation 
to it without feeding but during the series when an 
attempt was made to develop specificity the stimulus 
reaction had irradiated so as to include it. This sec- 
ondary association must next be broken down and we 
attempted it as follows. The bandage was put on ten 



134 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

seconds and no feeding was made. Then after three 
minutes the bandage was put on 5'', then the cutaneous 
stimulation was simultaneously presented for 10" more 
and a feeding was made. After two repetitions of the 
double procedure the child lay perfectly quiet upon the 
third trial while in the fourth, fifth and sixth trials he 
reacted with increasing volume to the correct conditions 
only. 

After 24 hours this discrimination was tested again 
and a rather doubtful reaction occurred to the bandage 
alone the first, second and third times but this was 
entirely lacking the fourth and fifth times, reaction 
occurring only in response to cutaneous stimulation. 

Thirty-three days later Partil was again available 
and the persistence of the touch-open-mouth association 
tried again. The first trial there was no reaction, the 
second time there was a vague undifferentiating reac- 
tion to the bandage but this increased when the cutane- 
ous stimulation was given. The reaction was still gen- 
eral on the third and fourth trials but occurred only in 
response to the cutaneous stimulation in the fourth and 
fifth trials. 

One more series was attempted with Partil, that of 
the development of a memory conditioned reflex. An 
auditory stimulus, the ringing of a metronome, was used 
for ten seconds and then ten seconds after the ringing 
stopped the child was fed. As early as the second trial 
the reaction occurred, but it occurred during the ring- 
ing of the metronome. Gradually it came later and 
later after the initiation of the auditory stimulus and 
finally after 15 trials was delayed until the metronome 
has stopped. 

The results of the work upon these eight children left 
no doubt in the mind of the experimenter as to the 



PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 135 

feasibility of applying the method of conditioned re- 
flexes in the study of young children. These children 
had been approached with the determination that their 
behavior itself should be made the controlling factor 
and should be allowed to lead to suggestions for modifi- 
cation of 'technique and method. The necessity of mak- 
ing the bodily position to be assumed during the study 
indifferent had been recognized and with active children 
who could not be kept lying down the whole time re- 
course was had to a game of lying them back on the 
couch (upon which they stayed even when sitting up) 
at irregular intervals both before the experiments began 
and in the intervals of the experiment. The bandage, 
too, could probably have been rendered indifferent in 
the same way but the fact, entirely unanticipated, that 
it proved such an important factor in the child's re- 
actions suggested that the Russian insistence upon 
simplification could be carried still further in this in- 
stance and at the same time make it easier for any one 
person to handle the various factors of child, bandage, 
stimulation, feeding, apparatus and time control, while 
it also simplified the number of possible reactions. 
These could again be simplified by taking off the band- 
age at once after the feeding as it would eliminate the 
development of the child's successful attempts to re- 
move bandage after feeding. This was done with Partil 
and in all later experiments. 

The trial with Partil of stopping the day's work 
when the desired reaction was once obtained, or before 
if fatigue showed, proved far more commendable from 
the standpoint of evaluation of results as over-learning 
was decreased to the minimum necessary due to trials 
for memorial re-functioning. 

That there are great individual and probably also 



136 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

developmental differences seems evident, while there is 
no doubt left in the mind of the experimenter but that 
innumerable variations of the method may be applied 
to the solution of almost any problem of child behavior. 

The development of the specificity of reaction in Par- 
til, its fluctuation under differences in number and 
order of points of stimulation and in indicating neural 
disturbances which could not be outwardly detected and 
were not understood until the report of his mental dis- 
turbance was afterwards obtained, the evident fluctua- 
tions due to fatigue of a rather neuropathic organism, 
all indicate the exquisite sensibility of the behavior re- 
action here studied. The transient irradiation of in- 
hibition from a new non-conditioning point of stimula- 
tion to the old formerly-functioning conditioned reflex 
is in itself a problem of high speculative interest. 

Although the results are only indicative, they are 
positively indicative of the possibility of studying in a 
normal fashion hitherto untouched provinces of child 
development and a quantitative investigation seemed 
next in order. 



CHAPTER VII 

A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF THE 
CONDITIONED REFLEX 

THE group of fifty children, which was practically 
all of those under seven years of age living in the 
village and which included in three instances seven-year- 
old-sisters of younger children, is in some senses a 
selected, in others an unselected group. The village is 
healthfully located and simply because it is surburban 
lacks congestion and slums. The children are probably 
benefited by these better conditions. Malnutrition is 
not a problem in the schools and is recognized in the 
homes in the several cases I found, being seemingly a 
condition due to other causes than lack of proper feed- 
ing. 

The home conditions of the children do vary and 
although the variation may not be as extreme as that 
which would be found in a large city yet visiting the 
homes gave data which was most enlightening. On one 
extreme I met the college woman, studying her children 
conscientiously and individually, willing and able to 
give me definite characterizations of each one, knowing 
his weak as well as strong points, interested, too, in all 
children, trying to establish a kindergarten for the vil- 
lage in the hope that it would lead to more genuine 
consideration of the pre-school child. Then there was 
the less well-trained but intelligent mother, using com- 
mon sense in letting her children get daily lessons from 

137 



138 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

life through helping care for each other, encouraging 
Marie to dry the dishes even if one were broken, prais- 
ing Jackie when he carried away the grass as father 
raked the lawn, too busy with three or four under school 
age to be theoretical but yet appealing to me in more 
than one instance for advice as to whether James should 
start school this fall or wait until he's fully six and 
nearly seven, making cogent observations regarding 
school hygiene, play and teachers. On the other ex- 
treme were those homes which seemed markedly dis- 
tinguished by one peculiarity. Although the houses had 
at least the conventional three rooms on the first floor 
they were not in use as in the other homes. The front 
doors were closed, the front porches bare and entrance 
was made through the back door. The family, in other 
words, huddled. It ate, dressed, sewed, played, visited, 
in the kitchen. The members were living under slum 
conditions when they were absolutely unnecessary and 
even in the warm weather were seldom found outdoors 
if we except the playing children who were chased out 
to be out of the way. From the standpoint then of 
home and social environment the children were not se- 
lected. 

As regards their inheritance, variation is again 
found. Careful observation, carefully verified, showed 
the following conditions. The parents of most of the 
children were both living and both normal, the mother 
running an average American middle-class home, the 
father working steadily, interested in his family and his 
home. In one instance the father was paralyzed, had 
been so for several years, due to a clot in the motor 
area of the brain. This had been detected by X-rays 
and was due to a sudden hemorrhage from over-exer- 
tion. He had always been rather delicate. In another 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 139 

instance the mother had a goitre. In another the 
mother had insane spells resembling psychic epilepsy. 
In these spells she would strike and beat her five-year- 
old son without any seeming cause, then suddenly pet 
and nurse him to make up for it. This occurred six 
or eight times a day. The woman was seemingly intelli- 
gent, conversed well and is of people who are in better 
circumstances than she. The husband and father is a 
feeble-minded man with a mentality of about ten. He 
works steadily but cannot even be allowed to drive a 
team for his employer as he ruins the horses through 
unintentional misuse. His wages are doled out by his 
employer as needed else the wife would spend them all 
for whatever took her fancy and leave the bills unpaid. 
In another case the mother was rather neurotic, suffer- 
ing from intense nervous headaches. In one other case 
the mother was that easy-going type that can manage 
to keep a family alive and fed due to delicatessen and 
bakery shops, but would, we feel, make a failure of any- 
thing where efficiency was demanded. Whether she 
would be classed as a social inefficient is a doubtful 
question. In one other case the mother was very large 
and obese. This condition was accompanied by a coars- 
ened skin condition, a deep mannish voice and facial 
hair. The two children who have reached adolescence 
have at that period developed a similar great stature 
and obesity. The condition does not resemble a pure 
acromegaly but one would suspect a definite thyroid 
abnormality with its concomitant disturbance of other 
functions. The older children are above average in 
their school accomplishments. One other abnormality 
was noticed. This is probably the sort of thing that 
would never be detected in a survey by one not on 
intimate terms with some members of the community. 



140 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

It is the thing that the village gossips did not talk 
about and this seemed surprising at first, but rather 
gives corroborative evidence of the fact that the condi- 
tion not only exists but exists to the extent found by 
the investigator, escaping comment just because of its 
prevalence. Among the fifty children tested the history 
was obtained that 4 of them were the children born of 
"forced" marriages, while the mother of another one is 
reported as having been exceedingly immoral since m^ar- 
riage. The fact that in all but one of these instances 
discrepancies of the same sort are reported in other 
branches of the famil}^ living in other villages indicates 
the truth of the findings. Whether the condition is 
unusual or just due to a more intimate knowledge of 
the situation than is usually acquired cannot be de- 
termined here. 

Turning now to consideration of the children them- 
selves let us study them quantitatively. 

The following mathematical evaluations of the meas- 
urements of the children studied have been made and 
the correlations of the most important of them calcu- 
lated: 

1. Chronological age, or the age of the child at the 
time of the experimentation, expressed in months to 
the last whole month, including any month completed 
on either of the two successive days upon which the 
child was studied. 

2. The first process of the modified Krasnogorski 
experiments, or the learning ability of the child as 
expressed in the number of trials necessary to form a 
sensory-motor association. The assumption being that 
the fewer the number of trials necessary, the greater 
the learning ability. 

3. The second process of the Krasnogorski experi- 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 141 

ments, or the memorial functioning of the association 
learned after an interval of twenty-four hours, meas- 
ured by the number of trials necessary to obtain its 
refunctioning, fewer trials meaning better memory. 

4. The learning value of the retention, or the sav- 
ing in number of trials necessary the second day as 
compared with the number necessary the first day. 

5. The percentage of saving in number of trials 
saved from first to second day. 

6. The third process of the Krasnogorski experi- 
ments, or the number of trials necessary to effect un- 
learning of the associative act learned when condition- 
ing stimulus is absent. Here again the actual number 
of trials necessary should theoretically be fewer the 
greater the intelligence of the child. 

7. As the number of trials needed to develop the 
unlearning may bear some relation to the number of 
trials necessary to learn the original association, the 
relation of these was calculated in the per cent of trials 
necessary for the learning that was used in bringing 
about the unlearning. Whether a low percentage indi- 
cates higher intelligence or not remains to be seen. If 
the supposition expressed in number six is true, then 
the same should hold in this case. 

8. The fourth process of the modified Krasnogor- 
ski experiments, or the number of trials necessary to 
correct the unlearning developed and to restore the 
re-functioning of the first association. Here again the 
number of trials should be less, according to theory, 
the greater the child's intelligence. 

9. The mental age of the child as expressed by his 
ability measured upon the Binet scale. These evalua- 
tions were not made in years but the actual number of 
points upon which the child succeeded was counted. 



U2 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

10. The mental age of the child as expressed by his 
ability measured upon the Bridges-Yerkes scale. Here 
again the evaluation was not transposed into years of 
mental age but left in the total number of points with 
which the child was credited. 

11. The number of seconds the child required to 
complete putting all the blocks into the Seguin Form 
Board, taken upon the first trial upon which the child 
succeeded without help, three trials being given if 
necessary. 

12. The number of seconds required to complete 
the Form Board in the best of the three trials given 
the first day. 

13. Improvement upon the Form Board upon the 
first day, being the saving in number of seconds from 
the first trial to the best of the three given. 

14. The percentage of the original time saved in 
the best trial made upon the first day. This seems to 
be a measure of the learning ability of the child. 

15. The improvement in number of seconds saved 
from the best trial made on the first day to the first 
trial made upon the second day. 

16. The improvement in number of seconds saved 
upon the Form Board from the best trial the first day 
to the best trial the second day. 

17. The percentage of improvement made upon the 
Form Board from the best trial of the first day to 
the best trial of the second day. 

18. Success upon the Goddard Adaptation Board 
as measured by the number of turns successfully com- 
pleted out of the four possible successes. 

19. The standing height of the child as expressed 
in millimeters. 

20. The sitting height of the child as expressed in 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 143 

millimeters. 

21. The standing-sitting height index, or the stand- 
ing height in millimeters divided by the sitting height 
in millimeters. 

22. The weight of the child as expressed in kilo- 
grams. 

23. The weight-height index, or the weight in kilo- 
grams divided by the standing height in centimeters. 

24. The dynamometer ability of the right hand, ex- 
pressed in kilograms. 

25. The dynamometer ability of the left hand, ex- 
pressed in kilograms. 

26. The average dynamometer ability, expressed 
in kilograms. 

27. The grip-ability — height index, being the aver- 
age dynamometer ability in kilograms divided by the 
height in centimeters. 

28. The grip-ability — weight index, being the aver- 
age dynamometer ability in kilograms divided by the 
weight in kilograms. 

29. The spirometer ability of the child as expressed 
in liters. 

30. The spirometer-ability — height index, being the 
spirometer ability in liters divided by the height in 
centimeters. 

31. The so-called vital index or the spirometer 
ability in liters divided by the weight in kilograms. 

Any further or more detailed discussion of the sig- 
nificance of these various measurements will be left 
until we consider the significance of their relations to 
each other. 

The interpretation of these correlations is, however, 
not so simple as it may seem at first. In social sta- 
tistics we are usually concerned with trying to find how 



144 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

far two elements, two conditions, are correlated and 
the mathematical expression which gives us this in- 
formation is in itself understandable. In this study, 
also, we wish to know in how far these various measure- 
ments are correlated but that is only half of our task. 
In order to evaluate the correlations that we may find 
it is necessary to know in how far the arrays should 
be correlated, provided they were the expressions ob- 
tained by the use of methods of mental examination 
which were infallibly correct in their diagnosis of nor- 
mality, defect, and genius. 

If we had any such measure, indicating the various 
diiferences in mentality as correctly as the stadiometer 
indicates indifferences in height, the distribution of any 
unselected group measured by it would probably take 
the same characteristic form as the distribution of 
other anthropometric characteristics, that is, it would 
be a Gaussian distribution. There would be this dif- 
ference, however. In-so-far as it is harder for any one 
to reach and surpass the ability expected of him than 
it is for him to remain intellectually dormant and fall 
farther and farther behind the constantly increasing 
norm, we might expect the distribution to be somewhat 
skewed towards the side of mental superiority. 

This curve skewed towards the upper end is the typ- 
ical curve that has been found in many studies of esti- 
mated intelligence through the use of marks, intelli- 
gence tests, etc. This distribution may be due to a 
lesser range of variation among those above normal or 
it may be due to our own mediocrity and consequent 
inability to properly discriminate and evaluate those 
factors which really indicate superiority. Whichever 
the cause this study does not claim to differ from any 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 145 

of the rest and will consequently make use of the skewed 
form. 

Goddard (59) found such a distribution in his study 
of over fifteen hundred school children tested by the 
Binet-Simon scale. Indeed, he uses the fact that the 
distribution is such as a proof that the scale is an 
accurate one. Whether this is so or not, nevertheless, 
it is true that the distribution is such a one as we 
would expect to find with a scale well-nigh perfect. 
This may be due to the fact that any imperfections in 
the scale are not general but pertain to perhaps more, 
perhaps fewer, of the individual tests. In the general 
findings these errors compensate for each other and 
give fairly accurate results although the individual find- 
ings may be more or less unfair. Moreover, any errors 
due to the functioning of the personal equation of an 
examiner are here probably balanced by the like errors 
of other examiners in the opposite direction, and so we 
have used the data presented by him in the table on 
page 234 to calculate the correlation coefl5cient of 
mental and chronological age when its expression takes 
the form of a Gaussian distribution. The value of this 
coefficient proved to be + 0.808. Using this coefficient 
for the sake of rough comparison we shall be able to 
tell more exactly than by the use of the actual corre- 
lations alone the significance of the various relations 
found. 

The following coefficients of correlation have been 
calculated by the product method. 

What is the significance of these findings .f* A sepa- 
rate discussion of each one is not necessary but those 
which seem the most important deserve further analysis. 

According to chronological age the distribution of 
the fifty children tested is as follows: 



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STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX IV! 

Age in mos. Boys Girls Totals 



12-23 


2 


3 


5 


24-35 


6 


2 


7 


36-47 


S 


3 


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48-59 


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60-71 


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84-89 





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Totals 24 26 50 

The predominance of girls is to be regretted but is 
due simply to the sex ratio in the village studied. 

First, the number of trials necessary for the forma- 
tion of an association between stimulus and mouth 
opening for food does not vary sufficiently with the 
different chronological ages to have a sufficient value 
for indicating with a high degree of accuracy the 
differences of learning ability at the different chrono- 
logical ages, if such differences exist. The correlation 
coefficient or r of the number of trials with chrono- 
logical age is only — 0.571 while in our criterion of a 
sufficiently high value in a Gaussian distribution r is 
plus or minus about 0.80. 

Let us turn, however, to the original data and inspect 
it further. We find that the number of trials required 
by the various children ranges from nine to three. As 
two correct trials were required before the association 
was counted as learned, and as one additional trial, the 
initial one, was needed to introduce the situation and 
replace a verbal Aufgabe, three is the smallest possible 
number of trials in which a child could develop the 
correct functioning of the association. Krasnogorski 
uses the first correct response as indicating learning, 



148 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

however, and so the records of all these cases, accord- 
ing to his estimation, would lie within the range of two 
to eight trials. Krasnogorski (100) reports that two 
to ten trials are sufficient. The difference in the upper 
limit of the range may be due to the fact that he used 
younger children than those twelve months old who were 
the youngest used by the experimenter in the present 
study, or to time differences, or may be those varia- 
tions due to differences in the strength of stimuli, 
method of presentation, or, as is quite likely, to the 
differences between children being handled by a man 
and by a woman. 

If we analyze the data for the number of trials re- 
quired by the children of different chronological ages, 
using whole years because of the small number of cases, 
the following results are obtained : 

No. of Cases Age No. of Trials (Av.) Range Mean Var. 



5 


12-23 


8.0 


7-9 


0.8 


7 


24-35 


6.71 


6-8 


0.82 


6 


36-47 


5.33 


3-8 


1.44 


12 


48-59 


3.83 


3-5 


0.83 


8 


60-71 


4.12 


3-5 


0.44 


9 


72-83 


5.0 


3-7 


1.11 


3 


84-89 


4.3 


4-5 


0.44 



These results may be seen expressed in curves on 
Chart I. 

It is clearly to be seen that up until the age of five 
the number of trials necessary for the formation of the 
conditioned association decreases rather regularly as 
the chronological age of the child increases. Above 
this the curve is not only less regular but the range 
of trials necessary for any one age is also greater than 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 149 



for the ages just preceding. This can hardly be due 
to any great difference in the ability of the older chil- 
dren as a group, for they were in most instances (in 15 
out of 20) the older brothers and sisters of the younger 
children used. It may be possible that we have here 
a symptom of an innate difference of different periods 
of development. The older child may see or imagine, 

CHART I. RELATION OF LEARKING TO CHROKOLOGI CAL AGS. 



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ChroTtological age expressed in months. 



because of his greater experience, and consequent great- 
er potentiality of associations, possibilities of varia- 
tion in the procedure to which the younger child is 
oblivious, being absolutel}^ sure after he has been fed 
candy under a given condition once or twice that it will 
appear again under like conditions. Genetically viewed, 
this difference may be as significant as a mark of old 
stages of development as are the differences recognized 
to-day between the adolescent and the pre-adolescent. 
Calculating the correlation coefficient for the num- 



150 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ber of trials necessary for the formation of the asso- 
ciation with chronological age for the children under 
60 months of age we obtain r. equals — 0.816. As the 
one is a decreasing array and the other an increasing 
one, the relation is a positive one and comparison with 
the coefficient of the high value Gaussian distribution 
assumed as a tentative norm, 0.808, indicates that it 
has undoubted value as a basis for distribution.* 

It may be interesting to note that no child over two 
years of age needed more than eight trials while none 
under that age used less than seven, none under three 
years needed less than six, while the minimum number, 
three, was all that were required by a child in the fourth 
year. Out of the fifty children, regardless of age, ten 
needed only three trials, eleven needed four trials, eleven 
used five trials while only seven needed six, five needed 
seven, four needed eight and two, nine trials. 

If we analyze this data still further and consider the 
sexes separately we see that there is in sex yet another 
factor determining differences in the rate of learning. 
This shows in the table following although some of the 
differences are obscured by the age grouping. 



No. of Cases 


Age in 
Months 


Av. No. of Trials 
for Learning 


Range 


Mean 
Var. 


Boys 2 
Girls 3 


12-23 




' 7.0 

8.7 


7 
8-9 


0.00 
0.43 


Boys 5 

Girls 2 ■ 


24-35 




■ 6.4 

7.5 


6-8 

7-8 


0.64 
0.50 


Boys 3 

Girls 3 


36-47 


- 


■ 6.S3 
4.33 


4-8 
3-5 


1.59 
0.89 



* Some such criterion of the correct value of r must be assumed 
when diagnostic norms are being studied. An r too near±l means 
that the factors under observation correlate too highly for the one 
to be used in selecting variants from a group which will not vary 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 151 



No. of Cases 


Age in 
Months 


Av. No. of Trials 
for Learning 


Range 


Mean 
Var. 


Boys 4 ^ 
Girls 8 


48-59 


1 4.50 
3.50 


3-5 
3-5 


0.75 
0.62 


Boys 4 1 
Girls 4 


60-71 


4.50 
3.75 


4-5 
3-4 


0.50 
0.38 


Boys 6 
Girls 3 ^ 


7S-83 


4.67 
5.67 


3-6 

4-7 


1.11 
1.11 


Boys 

Girls 3 ^ 


84-89 




4.33 


4-5 


0.44 



Expressed as a curve for the purpose of easier com- 
parison, this table gives the distribution seen on Chart 
II. 

Pursuing the analysis we find that almost without 
exception the average age of the boys decreases as the 
number of trials necessary for learning increases. With 
the girls, however, the age-learning relation is much 
less definite. The mode for learning with the boys is 
at five trials while for the girls it is at four, although 
the number there is almost equaled by the number learn- 
ing in three trials. This may be seen in the following 
table : 



Relation of Learning to Sex and Age 

No. of trials needed 
for learning 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Total 

No. of boys 3 3 7 6 3 2 ..24 

Average age.... 69 62.7 62.3 44.5 20.6 34.5 

No. of girls 7 8 4 1 2 2 2 26 

Average age.... 52.6 69.1 53.8 77.0 52.5 21.5 18.0 

in the other factor also. For instance, a mental test which has an 
r of it 0.95, or so, with chronological age is apt to indicate an 
ability so dependent upon chronological age that it varies with 
chronological age independent of actual mental ability. 



152 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



The correlation between chronological age and the 
number of trials needed for memorial functioning of 
the association after 24 hours is — 0.065, which shows 
such a slight decrease as the age increases as to appear 
negligible. Again recourse to our actual figures may 
be helpful. Since two trials were required before the 
association was counted as functioning that is the 
smallest number that could be used. Thirty-six of the 
fifty children gave a positive reaction on the first and 

CKARTII. RELATION 0? LSARKIHG TO CHROK, AGE AOT) SEX. 



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second trials, 9 on the second and third trials, while 
one took 4 trials, two required five, one needed six and 
one seven trials. Evidently in most of them the asso- 
ciation was so firmly developed that a twenty-four hour 
interval had not reduced it sufficiently to bring it below 
the functioning limen. Nor is the distribution of those 
who needed more than two or three trials greatly in- 
fluenced by age. The one who required seven trials 
was IS months old but the one who required 6 trials 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 153 

was 77 months old and the distribution of the rest was 
very irregular. 

The correlation of the number of trials needed in 
learning with the number needed after the ^i-hour 
interval is + 0.22, or a shght indication that those 
who needed more trials for learning were not, as is 
usually supposed, more retentive but required likewise 
a greater number of trials to re-establish the associa- 
tion. Some interesting relations of the learning and 
memorial function are seen in the following table: 

Relation of Memory to Learning 

No of Trials Range of Trials Av. No. of Trials Mean 

for Learning No. of Cases for Remembering for Remembering Deviation 

fBoys 3 2 2.00 .00 

3 \ Girls 7 2 2.00 .00 
[ Both 10 2 2.00 .00 
rSoys 3 2 2.00 .00 

4 \ Girls 8 2-5 2.50 .75 
[Both 11 2-5 2.36 .59 
[Boys 7 2-6 3.29 1.04 

5 \ Girls 4 2 2.00 .00 
[ Both 11 2-6 2.82 .89 
fBoys 6 2-3 2.33 .43 

6 \ Girls 1 2 2.00 .00 
[Both 7 2-3 2.29 .41 
fBoys 3 2-7 3.70 2.23 

7 \ Girls 2 3-5 4.00 1.00 
[Both 5 2-7 3.80 1.76 
fBoys 2 2-3 2.50 .50 

8 I Girls 2 2-3 2.50 .50 



[Both 4 2-3 2.50 



.50 



9 Girls 2 2 2.00 .00 



154 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

These results do not confirm the rather generally 
accepted thesis that the greater the number of trials 
necessary for learning, the more efficient the reproduc- 
tion, as both the most facile and the slowest learners 
are more efficient than those intermediate in type. 

Let us turn now to the third Krasnogorski process, 
or the unlearning of the previously developed associa- 
tion. It was found impossible to effect this unlearning 
without severe emotional disturbances in the youngest 
nine of the children tested. The palliative effect of the 
candy in the learning experiment was more vividly 
understood when this attempt was made to use the 
bandage and not feed. Usually the second, always the 
third or fourth trial, brought crying and no further 
attempt was then made, chiefly because of the unfavor- 
able effect of the crying upon the other children play- 
ing near, and the effect of reported crying upon the 
mothers of the community. No difficulty was experi- 
enced with children over twenty-eight months of age. 
The group in whom unlearning was developed conse- 
quently includes only 41 children ranging in age from 
29 to 89 months. 

The average rate of unlearning for children of the 
different ages and sexes may be seen in the table on 
page 155. 

From this we can see that there is in general a de- 
crease in the number of trials needed for unlearning 
as the chronological age increases. The average num- 
ber of trials needed by boys and girls of the same 
chronological age likewise differs considerably and there 
is an accompanying difference in the range of number 
of trials and in variability in the two sexes. 

The correlation between the number of trials neces- 
sary to effect the unlearning and chronological age is 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 155 



No. of Cases 
Boys 4 
Girls 5 

Boys 3 
Girls 



Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 



Av. No. of Trials 
Age in Months for Unlearning 



12-29 



MeanVar. 



30-35 



36-47 



48-59 



60-71 



72-83 



84-89 



f Failure 
Failure 










6.33 


5-8 


1.11 


'8.33 


5-12 


2.44 


9.67 


9-10 


0.44 


7.00 


3-9 


2.00 


8.38 


5-11 


1.63 


6.50 


5-9 


1.50 


9.50 


7-12 


2.00 


6.33 


4-10 


1.78 


5.33 


4-7 


1.11 


5.33 


5-6 


0.44 



— 0.316, which corroborates the fact shown by the 
table above that there is only a slight decrease in the 
number of trials needed as age increases. The num- 
ber of trials necessary to unlearn the association varies 
more than the number required in the learning of it. 
The distribution frequency is as follows: 



%h J 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Failures 

required. ) 



No. of 
cases 



;*} 1 2 10 4 4 6 5 5 2 



This table indicates a double distribution in the rate 
of developing unlearning, the one with a mode of 5 
trials, in some instances approaching in ability the 



156 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

minimal limit of the task, the other type more variable 
among themselves with a mode less well expressed but 
lying probably at 8, 9 or 10 trials. 

The extremes of number of trials necessary to effect 
unlearning are those mentioned by Krasnogorski for 
although he makes the general statement that it de- 
velops in 5 to 10 trials in normal children he also says 
in one instance that the association broke down after 
three trials in one six-year-old while in another in- 
stance it took eleven trials without stimulation before 
on the twelfth the reaction was lacking. But as there 
may have been great differences in method, length of 
stimulation times and intervals in the work he reports 
and that reported here this coincidence may not be 
assumed to mean corroboration of the accuracy of the 
findings in either of our series. If he used only one 
trial without positive response as an indication of the 
degeneracy or decreased functional efficiency of the 
conditioned reflex then by comparison we again, as in 
the learning process, find the mechanism more easily 
developed in our series. 

If we analyze the results on unlearning in their re- 
lation to the number of trials needed in the original 
learning we find r equals — 0.450, while in the relation 
between unlearning as measured in per cent of the 
learning trials it required and learning itself r equals 
— 0.774. Tabularly distributed this relation may be 
seen on page 157. 

In general the greater the number of trials that was 
necessary to develop the conditioned reflex the less the 
number required to break it down. 

If we analyze these results stiU further, according to 
sex, we find the distribution for either sex is quite dif- 
ferent from that of the other. 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 157 

Relation of Learning to Uni^earning 

No. of No. of Trials needed to 

Cases effect Unlearning No. of Trials used in Learning Av. No 

3 4 5 6 7 8 

13 1 5 

2 4 1 1 6.5 

10 5 2 4 3 1 5.4 

4 6 1111 4.5 

4 7 3 1 4.25 
6 8 2 3 1 4.3 

5 9 3 11 3.6 
5 10 2 3 4.2 
2 11 11 3.5 
2 12 1 1 5.0 

Average No. 9.2 7.4 5 5 8 6.5 

Sex and Age Distribution with Number of Trials 
FOR Unlearning 

No.oftridiforUnUaming 8 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 F.* 

No»ofBoy9 116 2233 10 14 

No. of Girls 14 22324 2 15 

Av.No.of trials on Learning 

Boys 5 6 5.8 6.5 4.5 5 4 3 ... 7 6.5 

GirU 7 4.8 8.5 4 3.7 4.55 4.5 8.5 3 8 

Average age. Boys 52 73 58.8 56.5 59 50.3 67 74 ... 36 20 

Girls 80 75.8 71.5 70.5 59 45 44.6 66.5 70 20.8 

* F » Failures. 

The range of distribution of the boys is wider, ac- 
cording to the number of trials used, than is that of the 
girls although the opposite was true of the learning 
process. The most frequent form of development of 
the unlearning took five trials with the boys while with 
the girls the development in five trials and development 
in ten trials occurred with equal frequency. With the 
boys the learning rate for those who needed five trials 
or less for unlearning was slower than it was for any 



158 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



of those who needed more trials if we make an excep- 
tion of one case who took twelve trials to unlearn and 
had needed seven to learn. With the girls the number 
of trials for learning is highest for those needing four 
or five trials to effect the unlearning and then gradu- 
ally decreases as the difficulty of unlearning increases 
but with another rise in learning difficulty for those 
who had taken ten trials to unlearn the association. 



CHAM llla. RELATION 07 lEARUlNO AND UNLEAWIINC TO CHROH. AGE AND 3BX (BOYS). 



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10N'<i'0<COM'3'«)«)0<V-«*<OcOON'4"'PCOO(S}'t<oa)ON«1"i 

Chronological age expressed in.monthe. 



With the boys we have an almost homogeneous group, 
finding less difficulty in developing unlearning the more 
slowly they learned or the less plastic they were to 
receive the more mobile they were to erase or modify. 
With the girls we have one group learning slowly and 
unlearning easily and also a group learning slowly and 
unlearning with difficulty, while those who learn more 
readily unlearn with proportionately increasing diffi- 
culty. Have we here in these early differences an indi- 
cation of conditions which later lead to the much more 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 159 



frequent nerve disturbances among girls? The fact 
already pointed out by Krasnogorski that neuropathic 
cases are apt to unlearn conditioned reflexes very slowly 
seems to re-enforce the probability of any such an 
inference. 

Although less accurate than a rough polygon would 
be, Charts III a and III b show more clearly the rela- 
tions age, sex, learning and unlearning hold to each 

CHART Illb. RELATION OP LEARMIHO AND UNLEARNING TO CHROH. ASE AST> SEX (GIRLS). 



S'12 
I- 

I? 

V 

o 

h 

a 

<a 3 
* 
"S 2 

ol 

io 



^ 



P 



i; 



U 



£====5 



A 



Learning 
Unlearning 



CM^lOa)OM'<l'<0 a]OM«<S00OC14<<OCDOCM'<«<<O00O(>)V<0C0O< 

Chronological age expressect in vonths. 

other. Above 6 years, i. e., 72 months of age, our data 
is too scanty to enable us to analyze what seems to be 
a very complex matter but below that the diff*erences 
are more clearly seen. 

Up until the age of two years and a little over the 
girls learn more slowly than the boys. From the age 
of about two until six they learn more rapidly than 
boys of the same age with only one exception. 

Unlearning, on the other hand, is in every case but 
one harder for the girls than for boys of the same age 



160 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

up until six years of age. 

The fourth mechanism studied was that of re-func- 
tioning of the conditioned reflex which had been un- 
learned. Krasnogorski uses the term "breaking-down" 
or "degenerescence" to denote the process which I have 
called unlearning. Those two terms together with a 
consideration of this fourth process itself give a better 
insight into its mechanism. In all of the 41 cases in 
whom the destructive eff*ect of stimulating without feed- 
ing was seen the unlearning was neutralized and learn- 
ing redeveloped with little difficulty. Two successive 
reactions were necessary to be sure the response was 
not accidental and in 38 of the children the first two 
after the renewed feeding were all that were necessary 
as they reacted positively from the first renewed feed- 
ing. In two cases three trials were necessary and in 
one case four. It is interesting to note that the two 
cases needing three trials were both over six years of 
age while the one needing four trials was only 51 
months old, a child rather above usual intelligence, who 
formed a conditioned reflex in five trials but who needed 
ten trials to effect unlearning. 

As might be expected from this uniformity of results 
correlation of redevelopment of learning with other 
functions is almost lacking, r for chronological age 
being only + 0.081 and the highest, that with the num- 
ber of trials needed for memorial functioning of the 
conditioned reflex, being only -f- 0.228 and conse- 
quently insignificant. 

The regularity of these results leads to a different 
view concerning this fourth process. It is not the re- 
building of an association that has been broken down 
completely although reaction is completely lacking. 
Instead the mechanism of unlearning may be looked 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 161 

upon as a process which reduces the strength of the 
association just far enough to take it below the limen 
of response and consequently only enough new asso- 
ciations are needed to raise it once more above the 
threshold. It seems relatively valueless as a method 
of studying mental processes when used in this form. 
Undoubtedly a study of the functioning of the re- 
developed association, comparing it with its primary 
functioning before modification by unlearning, would 
throw still more interesting light upon the relation of 
the learning and unlearning processes. At least the 
field is one of speculative interest although the results 
I have obtained throw very little light upon the mental 
processes of the child in this respect. 

Before making any further analysis of these pro- 
cesses it will be well to study the group from the stand- 
point of other tests given. 

RESULTS OBTAINED BY OTHER TESTS 

In evaluating the measurements obtained by the use 
of the Binet and Bridges- Yerkes scales all calculations 
have been made upon the total number of points gained. 
This gives one a chance to study the value of the test 
series apart from any arbitrarily determined age value 
which has been assigned. This seemed especially im- 
portant for the Binet evaluations as most people fail 
to recognize in them a point scale from which the 
Yerkes scale differs chiefly in that it has selected a 
limited number of questions, chiefly from the Binet, and 
has then made a higher number of points of gradation 
possible through more minute qualitative classification 
and a consequent higher evaluation of results than they 
were given in the Binet. 

The correlation between chronological age and Binet 



162 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

grading is + 0.949. This is much higher than the 
indicated correlation of a Gaussian distribution. 
Whether this is an error or not is difficult to decide. 
The tests surely do not pick out in a prognostic man- 
ner any large number of deviates from the norm. 
Whether there are, however, significant deviations pres- 
ent at this early age in a larger proportion of children 
is still an unanswered question. 

The correlation of the Yerkes evaluations and age 
is -f- 0.893. This is probably a more highly prog- 
nostic distribution. The inventor of this scale might 
justly criticize the usage of it on the younger children 
since he states (191, p. 89) that the scale is of little 
value below the age of three years and seven months. 
As a matter of fact it gives a rather regular distribu- 
tion, approximating that of the Binet, between the 
ages of two and four, and above that age it differs 
little from the Binet in general trend but because of 
higher evaluation of each test it gives greater indi- 
vidual variations. This may readily be seen in the 
following curves which show the relative achievement 
of each child on the two scales, considered with respect 
also to chronological age. 

An analysis of the ratings by the Binet or Yerkes 
tests based upon sex brings out very little that is new. 
The individual cases of either sex are now higher, now 
lower, in the number of points they receive credit for 
although in general children of about the same chrono- 
logical age seem comparable regardless of this factor. 
But with such a small number of children, all in the 
period where a few months' development may mean 
great differences in the ability to do tests, there is no 
adequate basis for a study of sex differences. The 
number of children of both sexes who are of any one 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 163 



chronological age is too small and too irregularly 
divided between the two sexes to make it worth while 
presenting the comparisons in detail. 

If we analyze out the various cases falling below the 
general level by either, or rather by both, Binet and 
Yerkes tests, since in all the grosser instances these 



BIHET Airo POIirr scale RATIHGS to CHHONOLOGICAI. AGS. 




Cases arranged numerically according te chronological age. 

coincide, we find the following to be the children who 
deviate the most (See Chart IV). 

Case 26, female, is the daughter of the woman de- 
scribed as immoral since married. The child to a clini- 
cian appears dull in many ways, needs to be told things 
again and again and is very babyish. She is undoubt- 
edly the dullest girl studied. 

Case 38 is the son of the feeble-minded man and the 
insane woman. 

Case 29 is the daughter of the woman with goitre 



164 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

and seems to be rather slow about doing things but 
does not seem to be really defective. 

Cases 28 and 35 are brothers. They are both called 
dull when compared with their older sister, case 50, but 
although below their compeers are not feeble-minded so 
far as can be determined. They are of normal but 
rather inferior, slow, easy-going stock. 

The relation of the evaluations by either of these 
methods to the Krasnogorskian results is not so simple. 

If we study the mental age of the group when dis- 
tributed according to the number of trials they used 
for learning the conditioned association, regarding also 
age and sex, we find evidences that the relation is very 
complex. On the Binet all the averages for boys except 
for those taking 8 trials for learning show that the 
Binet age increases as the chronological age increases 
for each of the sub-divisions according to the number 
of trials needed for learning and that in any group of 
the same age the mental age decreases as the number 
of trials needed for learning increases. In the two 
cases taking 8 trials for learning the mental age is 
slightly greater than for those taking seven trials or less 
but this variation is probably due to chance working 
upon such a small number of cases. Also, the younger 
boys tend towards slower learning. 

Exactly the same condition holds for the mental age 
of boys calculated by the Yerkes scale except that the 
differences according to chronological age and rate of 
learning seem accompanied by greater but less regular 
variations in mental age. 

The distribution of the girls on both scales seems far 
less regular. Under any one of the groups formed by 
division according to the number of trials used on the 
learning the mental age increases with the chronological 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 165 

age, except in the group requiring four trials which 
includes at the points marked ° the two brightest chil- 
dren for their ages that were tested, while ° ° indicates 
case 26, the dullest girl tested. 

The relation, under any one chronological grouping, 
of mental age and the number of trials required to form 
the association is not regular although it indicates that 
in general the number of trials necessary is less with 
some dull children than with average children while 
other dull children take longer to learn than the average 
child. Only children under three years of age take as 
many as eight or nine trials and here the duller child 
of an equal age takes longer to learn. 

These relations may be best seen in the tables follow- 
ing. The correlation between learning and Binet rating 
is — 0.588 while with evaluations by the Yerkes scale 
it is — 0.589. In the tables the figures represent the 

Relation of Learning to Binet with Analysis by 
Sex and Age 

Age in months Number of trials required to develop learning. 

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 

^^-^^{Es: ' 7 i 

^^^^{oiris 16 17 15 16 

.o^Q / Boys 24 20.6 

^^^^\ Girls 19°° 27.5° 22 

60-71 / ^«y« 2^-^ ^^ 

^"^n Girls 28 27.3 

„a oq / Boys 30.5 29.5 28.5 

'^ "^ \ Girls 34° 28 32 

84-89 Girls 32.5 32 

Av. Age Boys 28.3 22.7 24.1 17.8 8.3 14.0 

by Girls 19.9 29.5 22.0 28.0 19.5 11.5 5.5 
Binet Both 22.4 27.6 23.4 19.3 12.8 12.8 5.5 



166 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

Relation of Learning to Yeekes with Analysis by 
Sex and Age 



Age in months 


Number of i 


Irials req 


wired to c 


levelop I 


earning. 






3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


'^Hg^s 



















^H^^s 








5.25 





6 
8 




^^&s 


10 


11 


10 




7 


9 




^^^o{^^l 


29 
15°° 


27.5° 


16.3 
12 










«o-^ir^?£ 


28 


22 
24.3 


20.5 










72-83 {Bgfl 


30.5 


32° 


27.5 


27.5 
20 


31 






84-89 Girls 




31.5 


33 










Av.Age Boys 


30.0 


18.3 


20.6 


12.7 


2.3 


7.5 




by Girls 


16.1 


28.0 


16.2 


20.0 


15.5 


4.0 





Yerkes Both 


20.3 


25.4 


19.1 


13.7 


7.6 


5.8 






average rating by BInet or Yerkes tests of the children 
who by sex, age and number of trials needed for learn- 
ing belong in a group. The ratings are all expressed 
in points for which credit was given. 

If we make the same type of distributive analysis 
upon the basis of the number of trials necessary to 
develop unlearning we find that for both the boys and 
the girls the mental age increases as the chronological 
age within each and every subdivision made according 
to difficulty of unlearning. This is true on both the 
Binet and Yerkes distributions but with one exception 
in both. In the group needing 9 trials for unlearning 
there is a deviation, the case marked #, which is case 
38, the son of the feeble-minded man and the insane 
woman. 

If within any one division according to chronological 
age we compare the mental ages of those requiring 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 167 



different numbers of trials to unlearn we find sex dif- 
ferences. The mental ages of the boys increase as the 
number of trials increases up to a certain point, then 
decrease as unlearning becomes still more difficult. 



Relation of Binet Age to Unlearning, Age and Sex. 



Age in 
months 



Number of trials required to develop unlearning. 
3466789 10 



12 



12 to 23 f Boys . . 

\ Girls . . 

24 to 35 / Boys . . 

....... \ Girls . . 

26 to 47 / Boys . . 

\ Girls . . 

48 to 59 /Boys 17. 

1 Girls . . 

60 to 71 / Boys . . 

\ Girls .. 

72 to 83 / Boys . . 

\ Girls . . 

84 to 89 Girls . . 



12.0 16.0 
16!0 '.'. 



12.0 
19 '.0 



Fail- 
urea. 

5.0 
5.6 
11.0 
11.5 



15.0 



26.0 
24.0 



19 



28.0 28.5 

S2.0 28.0 

.. 31.0 



22.0 .. 

.. 23.5 
30.0 .. 

.. 28.0 28.0 

31.0 .. 31.0 
.. 34.0 .. 

35.1 .. 



16.0 
23.5 
23.0 
19.# 



17.0 
18!5° 

36:it# 



20.0 
26^0 



28.0 



Av age 
Binet 



' age f Bo 
by Gi 
;iaet I, Bg 



Boys 17.0 
Girls . . 
Both 



28.0 22.2 23.5 26.0 
32.0 29.0 27.0 31.0 
20.0 24.9 25.2 28.5 



20.7 22.0 30.0 
25.0 19.5 17.8 

22.8 21.0 20.2 



15.0 8.0 

23.0 27.0 8.2 

21.5 8.1 



Relation of BBiDaEa-YEBKES Age to Unlearning, Age and Sex. 



Age in 
months 



Number of trials required to develop unlearning. 
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 



12 



Boys 

Girls . . 
Boys 

Girls . . 
Boys 

Girls . . 

Boys 10.^ 

Girls . . 
Boys 

Girls . . 

72 to 83 / Boys . . 

Girls . . 

84 to 89 Girls .. 



12 to 23 
24 to 35 
36 to 47 
48 to 59 
66to7i 



4.0 
9!o 



26.0 
20.5 



26.0 
31. 



27.5 29 
20.0 . 
29.5 37 



Av, age f Boys 10.0 

by ] Girls . . 
Yerkes I Both 



26.0 18.2 
31.0 26.2 
28.6 21.4 



6.0 

ii!o 



20.0 .. 

.. 22.0 

30.0 .. 

29.0 23.0 

.. 33.0 

32.0 .. 



10.0 
24.0 
26.0 

14. S 



25.0 16.7 
30.5 22.3 
27.8 19.5 



20.7 
18.0 
19.6 



16 



5 28 
17 



Fail- 
ures, 

0.0 
0.0 
4.5 
4.0 



2.2 
1.6 
5 1.9 



This seems to be the situation although a complete dis- 
tribution at any one age is lacking but the cases of 
lower mentality are on the ends of the various distribu- 
tions according to number of trials needed. Case # 
is the case 38 mentioned above. Case ### is case 
28 also mentioned before as rather dull, while case 
## indicates the child from the family where there 



168 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

seems to be some glandular disturbance which brings 
abnormal obesity from adolescence. This boy as yet 
shows no physical signs of the abnormal development. 
Among the girls the duller ones seem intermediate 
in range while the brighter ones unlearn either more 
rapidly or more slowly. Case ° is number 26 described 
above while case °° is the daughter of the woman with 
goitre. 

In general it seems evident that rating the child by 
either Binet or Yerkes and at the same time placing 
him relatively on the Krasnogorski processes brings out 
complementary evidence, from the two extremely dif- 
ferent measures, of the child's ability relative to the 
group. 

Let us consider next the results obtained upon the 
Seguin Form Board. In all only 89 children were able 
to complete the task of placing each of the ten blocks 
where it belonged. Of the eleven who failed nine failed 
completely and the other two were unable when they 
had incorrectly covered a hole to go ahead and correct 
their error. All children were given three trials one 
right after the other and no more than three. For 
the 39 who succeeded the following correlation with 
chronological age were calculated: 

Initial time — 0.774 

Best time first day — 0.806 

Improvement first day + 0.011 

% improvement first day + 0.442 

Improvement from best first day 

to first trial second day — 0.302 

Improvement from best first day 

to best second day — 0.482 

Improvement from best first to 

best second day in % — 0.512 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 169 

The initial time on the Form Board is not a valuable 
nor a reaUy correct value with several of the children 
as it was necessary to help them in order to enable 
them to comprehend what was wanted from them. None 
of the other methods of rating their ability has a suffi- 
ciently high correlation coefficient to be worth studying 
intensively except the best Form Board time the first 
day. This was the rating which was consequently 
selected for correlation with other findings on the same 
children as well as for analysis independently. 

The r between Form Board time on the best trial and 
Binet age is — 0.799, or the time decreases as the men- 
tal age increases. The correlation with the Yerkes age 
is very nearly the same, being — 0.798. The correla- 
tions between Form Board time and the development 
of learning and unlearning are very low, indeed negligi- 
ble, being only + 0.228 and + 0.199 respectively. A 
tabular analysis gives very little more information re- 
garding the reason for this non-conformity. A curve 
plotted on the individual cases arranged in order of 
merit or speed on the Form Board shows that the rate 
of completing the task decreases as age or as mental 
age decreases. There is some relation to learning: those 
who learn most quickly are not, however, the quickest 
on this task but rather nearer the middle of the group, 
while the slowest learners are slowest here also. The 
girls seem somewhat more rapid than the boys. 

The lack of a higher correlation may probably be ex- 
plained in the following manner. A child who forms 
a conditioned reflex or conditioned association rapidly 
Tuay learn just as rapidly on the Form Board hut in his 
learning if there be any error due to a false move or 
to trial and error learning in general he learns that 
false move as a part of the procedure and he then has 



170 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



to unlearn it before it drops out of his behavior. This 
lengthens his total reaction time and may persist for 
a number of trials. Such an explanation can not be 
proven to be correct without micromotion study but ex- 
perience leads the writer to believe that it may be at 
least one of the factors at work. 

The accompanying tables give the results obtained 
from an analysis of the Form Board times in the groups 
homogeneous as regards age, sex, learning and unlearn- 
ing ability. The figures in the tables indicate average 
times for the groups expressed in seconds. 



Relation of Form Board Time to Learning, Age and Sex. 



Age in 
months 
12 to 23 

24*10 35 

36 to 47 

48 to 59 

eotoT-i 

72 to 83 
84 to 89 



Number of trials needed for learning, 
4 5 6 



Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 127.0 

Boys 62.0 



Girls . 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Girls. 



65.9 



27.0 
31.7 



60+lF. 
75. 7# 
73.0 
33.0 

24!5 

22!o 



107 +2F. 
F. 



28.0 
28.0 



2F. 



23 
F = Failure 



F 

145 
F 



2F. 



Average 
time 



Age in 
months 



Boys. 

Girls. 
Both. 



41.5 
69.1 



36 



51.5 
51.7 
51.6 



54.3 
28.0 
47.0 



122.0 
122.0 



Relation of Form Board Time to Unlearning, Age and Sex. 

Number of trials to develop unlearning. 
3456789 10 



12 



Fail- 
ures 



12 to 23 


fBoys 
1 Girls 








•• 


•• 


•• 


•• 




.. 2F. 
.. 3F. 


24 to 35 


Boys 
1 Girls 


•• 






107.0 


•• 


•• 


145.0 




.. 2F. 
.. 2F 


36 to 47 


fBoys 
1 Girls 








99.0 


F. 




90.0 


127.0 60+lF. 


95.0 


• 


48 to 59 


[Boys 
Girls 


135.0 






32^4 


38!o 


33.0 


67!5 


20.5 .. 

49.4 55.5 123.0 




• 


60 to 71 


Boys 
Girls 








33.0 




30.0 
27.0 


34!o 


54.0 .. 

.. 33.0 


27 .'O 


• 


72 to 83 


Boys 
Girls 




28.0 
23.4 


24.5 
28.0 


28.0 


21^0 


24.0 


.. 39.4 .. 






84 to 89 


Girls 




•• 


21.0 


24.0 


•• 


"f. 


= Failure. 






Average 


Boys 


135 


28.0 


53.5 


28.0 


31.5 


86.3 


58.3 39.4 .. 


95.0 


P. 


Time 


Girls 




23.4 


25.6 


31.0 


24.0 


49.7 


88.2 57.0 78.0 


27.0 


K. 





,Both 




2i 


5.7 


42.3 


30.0 


27.8 


68.0 


70.3 62.6 


61.0 


V. 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 171 

In studying the relation of Form Board times to the 
rate of unlearning of an association we can see that in 
general the rapid unlearners succeed more rapidly with 
this task but the deviations are marked in both direc- 
tions 

The results obtained upon the Adaptation Board are 
interesting in spite of the small number of cases. They 
extend downward the results published by Goddard. 
No child under thirty months of age succeeded in cor- 
rectly responding to any one of the trials. No child 
under 47 months of age completed the whole four turns 
while no child over 77 months failed. In this inter- 
mediary group success upon the first two trials is by no 
means synonymous, as Goddard seems to think, with 
success upon the third and fourth trials although it 
may be in older children. Of the 33 between the ages 
of 47 and 77 months 3 did only 1 turn, 8 did 2 turns, 
3 did 3 turns, 10 did 4 turns and 9 failed com- 
pletely. The correlation with chronological age is 
-f- 0.703, which is surprisingly high when one considers 
the few possible types of behavior in response to the 
situation. The correlation with Binet age is -|- 0.716 
and that with the Yerkes is + 0.672 with a slight su- 
periority of the Binet evidenced as a means for study- 
ing adaptability. This slight difference of the two is 
also seen in a slightly higher correlation of the Yerkes 
with the reverse function, unadaptative memory, as 
measured by the Krasnogorski process of unlearning. 

The correlation value of the adaptation board ability 
with learning is — 0.366 and with unlearning is 
— 0.280. The difference here, although slight, again 
corroborates the fact that the learning and the un- 
learning processes do involve adaptation as a factor 
making for success. Disregarding age, which we have 



172 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



seen is highly correlated with success on this test, we 
find the relation of learning and unlearning to the num- 
ber of successful turns on the Adaptation Board clearly 
shown in the following tables : 

Relation of Learning to Adaptation. 
Number of trials needed for learning. 



Boys 



Girls 







3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


Failed... 




2 




2 


2 


2 


2 




Succeeded 


on 
















Iturn... 


















2 turns.. 








2 


1 


1 






3 turns.. 






1 


1 


1 








4 turns . . 




1 
2 


2 


2 

1 


2 


1 


2 




Failed... 




2 


Succeeded 


on 
















1 turn... 




2 


1 












2 turns.. 




1 


1 


2 


1 








3 turns.. 


















4 turns.. 


.. 


2 


6 


1 




1 







Relation of Unlearning to Adaptation. 
Number of trials needed for unlearning. 







3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


Failures 


r Failed 


1 




1 




1 


1 


1 


1 






4 


Succeeded on 
























Boys 1 turn 










.. 














2 turns 






2 








1 






1 




3 turns 






1 


1 






1 










1.4 turns 


.. 


1 


2 


1 


1 


2 








.. 




(-Failed 














1 


2 






5 




Succeeded on 
























Girls 


1 turn 












1 


1 




1 








2 turns 

3 turns 


•• 


•• 


1 


•• 




1 




2 


1 








.4 turns 


1 


3 


2 


2 


1 










1 





The tables merely confirm the low correlation coeffi- 
cients indicating that in general the child who learns 
more readily in the Krasnogorski learning is apt to 
learn more readily to adapt to the changing situation 
in this test, while the learning is still further condi- 
tioned by the ability to unlearn which is essential for 
adaptation. Or, it is the child who not only learns 
quickly but who also unlearns quickly that is most apt 
to do well on this board. 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 173 

It is interesting to note that all boys who succeeded 
in completing the first turn likewise did the second 
turn while the two successes are not always correlated 
in the girls. On the other hand the girls who do the 
third turn all do the fourth turn also and this is not 
true of the boys. Of course this may be only a chance 
result from so few cases. 

Regarding the three Healy Boards very little data 
were obtained. The boards were not presented as a 
learning problem in the manner Schmitt used them but 
as a completion problem or task. As such they inter- 
ested the children but errors and difficulty usually led 
them to express a preference for the Seguin Form 
Board. No successful completion was obtained from 
any child under the age of 52 months. A girl of that 
age completed the Foal and Mare Puzzle in 300 seconds 
but failed on the other two boards. No other child 
under 70 months of age was successful on the Foal and 
Mare Puzzle. No child under 55 months of age com- 
pleted Healy A and no child under 67 months com- 
pleted Healy B. 

On the Foal and Mare Puzzle only ten of the fifteen 
children who were over the age of 70 months succeeded 
nor is the failure definitely correlated with any other 
process tested. 

Similarly, eight children completed Healy A in times 
ranging from 30" to 325", and nine, five that did the 
Healy A and four others did Healy B in times rang- 
ing from 90" to 330". The failures for children of the 
same ages, mental ages, etc., are more frequent than 
the successes, however. Consequently all that we can 
decide is that success is indicative of an ability not 
generally possessed by children of these ages but 
whether failure is significant can not be determined. 



174 , CHILD BEHAVIOR 

All of the cases worked either by chance or by the trial 
and success method. 

The other measurements of the children were of two 
kinds : the purely anthropometric and the psychomotor. 
The purely anthropometric measurements consisted of 
the standing and sitting heights of the child and his 
weight. The psychomotor measurements were the dyna- 
mometric record the child achieved with his left and his 
right hands used separately and his spirometer ability. 
These are usually called the "grip" and the "vital" or 
"lung capacity." These last are measured indirectly 
through the use of apparatus and consequently measure 
not the maximum efficiency of the muscles and the lungs 
as such but the maximum efficiency of the child to vol- 
untarily utilize the capacities inherent in his organism. 
As this introduces a mental factor they are measures 
which should probably correlate more highly with each 
other than with the purely anthropometric findings. 
This is actually the case. 

The height and weight as such are less significant 
than their relation to other measurements as indicated 
by indices, hence we have made no detailed study of 
them separately. The small number of cases would in 
itself seem sufficient reason for not attaching any sig- 
nificance to them as norms of height or weight, espe- 
cially as all analysis would have to be by age and sex. 
In studying mental processes, however, and psychomo- 
tor functions, the thing we most desire to obtain is in- 
formation concerning the relation of these measures to 
psychomotor and mental growth. If they are at all 
closely associated with the development of mental abil- 
ity as tested by the various present-day procedures the 
relation should appear when the two sexes are studied 
together. 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 175 

The following correlations with chronological age 
were found: 

Height, standing +0.898 

Height, sitting + 0.908 

Standing-sitting height index + 0.64)2 

Weight + 0.894 

Weight-height index + 0.673 

Grip with right hand +0.871 

Grip with left hand + 0.848 

Average grip + 0.867 

Grip-height index + 0.829 

Grip-weight index + 0.844* 

Spirometer ability + 0.862 

Spirometer ability-height index + 0.827 

Spirometer ability-weight index +0.762 

Of these we selected several for further study and 
correlation. The average grip was chosen instead of 
either the right- or left-hand grip because it equates 
the values for right- and left-handed children and since 
it is the average of the best trial for each hand its 
value is less apt to be influenced by chance factors. 
The grip-weight and grip-height indices were also 
studied because of their possible value as giving indi- 
cations of physiological age while the spirometer-height 
and the vital indices were studied for the same pur- 
pose. 

Average grip and the two grip indices may be con- 
sidered together. The grip-weight index seems to be 
slightly more valuable than either of the others as it 
correlates slightly higher with the results of the mental 
examinations. The grip indices invariably correlate 
more highly with the mental ratings than do the vital 



176 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

indices if we consider the Binet, Yerkes, Adaptation and 
Form Board tests and the Krasnogorski unlearning 
while the vital indices correlate significantly higher with 
the Krasnogorski processes of learning, memory and re- 
learning. This correlation with learning may seem to 
be partly due to the fact that the use of the spirometer 
involves more learning than the use of the dynamometer 
but such can hardly be the case as the children were 
given similar chance to improve their record on both 
pieces of apparatus. The best record was used re- 
gardless of the fact that it was the first or the last rec- 
ord that the child made. 

Grip records were obtained upon all of the children 
over two years of age. The five under that age failed 
seemingly because of lack of being able to understand 
what was required of them and not because of their in- 
ability to grip anything at all. The same children 
failed to make any record upon the spirometer with the 
exception of the one nearest to two years of age (22 
months), who inhaled instead of exhaling. The record 
was used despite this reversal of the normal way of mak- 
ing a record but the other four who were all under six- 
teen months of age could not even comply with the 
suggestion to "suck it" or "taste it," which was given 
in an attempt to get them to make a record by inhala- 
tion after they had failed in an attempt to make one 
by "blowing." 

The average grip distribution is seen in Chart V. If 
we take the average grip of the child and divide it by 
his height we have the increment of grip per increment 
of body height. The distribution of this index follows 
regularly that of the grip itself, showing that the varia- 
tion in the grip of the different children is due to some 
other factor than that of physiological development as 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 177 

measured by height, although height regularly in- 
fluences the grip amount. This independence of the 
factor of height is indicated by the unusually high cor- 
relation coefficient of +0.989 between grip and the 
grip-height index. Similarly the influence of weight 
may be studied by calculating the increment of grip 
per increment of body weight. 

Body-weight seems to have a somewhat greater in- 

CHARI V. AVERAGE DYNAMOMSTEH ABILITY AND ITS RELATION TO HEIGm, WEIGHT AHD AGE. 



Pynamomoter atilily 

Dytiaraometer atUity - Height Index 

Bynamomeler ability - Welg>it Index 




Caaee arranged numerically aceordlne to Increasing chronological age. 

fluence upon the individual variations than height has, 
reducing them and bringing them nearer to a group 
average. Significantly enough it does not seem to raise 
the relative rating of those whose grip was less than 
the average as much as it decreases the variation of 
those above the average. The grip-weight index has 
in general the highest correlative value of the three 
when we study their relation to the mental tests. The 
sex diff^erences do not appear to be very great although 
the girls seem more variable among themselves while 
the range of variability is greater for the boys. 



178 , CHILD BEHAVIOR 

The correlations between average grip and the learn- 
ing and unlearning of the conditioned reflex are rather 
low but on the whole the more rapidly a child learns or 
unlearns the better is apt to be his grip or dynamom- 
eter ability. There are many individual exceptions to 
this generality and the relation is again influenced by 
sex, age and by the high correlation the grip has with 
things which indicate motor control. Grip or dyna- 
mometer ability surely deserves a closer study and we 
may some day find that its variation when the height 
and weight factors have been eliminated will be contribu- 
tive to a better understanding of the relation existing 
between physiological and mental development. 

The lung capacity as measured by the spirometer 
gives a similar distribution to that found by the grip 
measurements. The spirometer ability-height index or 
increment of lung capacity as measured upon the spi- 
rometer per increment of body height is, like the grip- 
height index, quite similar to the original measurement 
when the factor of height had not been eliminated. 
This can easily be seen in the close approximation of 
the two curves on Chart VI. The lung capacity-weight 
index is quite diff^erent. The weight seems to be a de- 
termining factor in the increase of lung capacity in 
the children over five years of age. It also influences 
the variations of individual cases. 

The lung capacity- weight or vital index has been 
rather widely used. DeBusk (36) finds that children 
who are retarded show a lessened vital index. Since 
then he has also declared that there is a definite rela- 
tion between the vital index and mental age according 
to the Binet although he has presented no correlation 
coefficient (Unpublished doctorate thesis). 

There is a correlation of -j- 0.739 between the vital 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 179 



Index and the Binet age of the children measured in 
this study. The correlation coefficient of the lung ca- 
pacity-height index with Binet age is even higher, be- 
ing -\- 0.769. But neither of these is as high as the 
correlations between grip and Binet rating. 

The same is true of the Point Scale or Yerkes rat- 
ings. The correlation coefficient with vital index being 
+ 0.679 while that with the lung capacity-height in- 

CHART VI. SPIPOMBTER ABILITY ASD ITS RKLATiOIf TO HEIGHT, VEICHT AST) ACS. 



XX ~ ""j 


4 __ Splrnm-t.T ahnity 1 1 X 


Spirometer ability - Height Index JH 


3 __,_ Splroaeter ability - Weight IndAic ^ • 




^ - "- ~ :^ .-^IX " " 


11 A. Ik t '•' 


1 •• tt 1^ f 


: : -:• _u iW-il ' ■:% 


X- ii tij ■ " >• 


lIl :. UtiX U I ^ . 


9 - - ^^ :• :.:\^n-TV~ T -i 


- - -- It ^^A%^-^w--'t - i li 


8 - -Z ■ ■ l\^ LL^^.lWltZ JJ 


■1 1 ■ -1^ : X3 4-4^ 




;^ : "V V - -i* -- ffen 1: 2t ~! ^ 


6 - ■■ Ui- • \ " ilLa-. Ml Zl n /. I X 


: z 2^ z i:i.i^ I ^zit^p % v --^^ -^ ■ -izt^ 


5 ^S . EE 25 I ^ 'I I-"t-!l ^Z OZlA ■ "^7 t".' 


zt- -1^1 -^^^ 7\u ZMh^ L XX "^^ ••: 


4 ^i-x^LW:^^\_^S tizit - --i ' It 


33 2- -"^^ItX _. 11 


3 tX-f^'^ X 1^ X J 


-•••■J:x : zL^ z' 


2 :^.^a:x 


■z^y X j- 


1 1 X " 


- t X ~ _ " ± "" 


_i:Sg_ ,_ _ _. _ _„__ 



0*868^ arranged 



5t-a)o.Of-iMio<'««r-«>o>Or-iNiO'*w52-»goHo!(02;; 
^Hr^r^lNc^NNc*PJM(\lo^cllOtom>oto■o«««rtlO«J•«I■v«■^^■■ 

numerloally aoeordincr to Incrcaslns chronological ege. 



10 C- 00 o. o 



dex it is -f 0.722 and with the grip-weight index it is 
+ 0.755. 

There are moderate correlations between the vital in- 
dices and Form Board and Adaptation scores but in 
general these are not so high as the correlations of the 
same scores with the grip indices. 

The Krasnogorski learning and the vital index have a 
correlation of — 0.548 or there is a tendency for the 
more rapid learners to have a greater spirometer abil- 
ity-weight index. The correlation coefficient for learn- 



180 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

ing ability and spirometer ability-height index is al- 
most as high, being — 0.516. On the other hand the 
correlation coefficients expressing the relations between 
these indices and unlearning are so low as to be prac- 
tically negligible. 

On the whole the correlation coefficients indicate that 
both of these indices as well as the grip indices should 
be used as supplementary tests of mental behavior. 

RESULTS OBTAINED UPON DEFECTIVES 

In regard to the question as to whether Krasnogorski 
was right when he claimed that the results obtained by 
his method have such high clinical value we must turn 
for a specific answer to our experiments upon mental de- 
fectives. The fact, pointed out above, that in our un- 
selected group the children found at the extremes of 
the age distributions for boys and those found serially 
misplaced by Binet or Yerkes, when the basis of group- 
ing was the number of trials on the learning process, 
are the deviates of the group as a whole — this fact 
shows that we have a method which is able to help de- 
termine defectives. Whether it can do so independent 
of correlation with other findings is another matter. 

The work upon the seven lower-grade defectives will, 
with the exception of cases 6 and 7, throw very little 
light upon the problem. The rate of learning of the 
first five cases is as foUows : 

Case 

No. 
1 



Age in 


No. 


of trials for 


Mental Age 


months. 




learning 


in Years. 


55 




14 


1— 


50 




5-6 


1 


51 




13 


lor 2 


60 




10-19 


12 


36 




6-9 


13 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 181 

Two of these establish a reaction within the range 
of number of trials found upon our unselected group. 
Their reaction is nearer that which one would expect 
of their chronological age than that which corresponds 
to the same mental age in our imselected group. The 
other three are far slower learners than the youngest 
normal children tested. But then such a test is not 
actually needed as all of the five are so definitely idiotic 
that a superficial examination reveals the hopelessness 
of the condition to a chnician of ordinary experience. 
Case seven is somewhat higher grade but again defi- 
nitely defective. He learns in 8 trials on one process 
and in 12 on another. The greatest number of trials 
used by any of those in our unselected group of chil- 
dren who are over 37 months is 7, Case 7 needs 8 and 
in mentality he belongs about with the three-year-olds 
who need seven or eight trials, although he is 73 months 
old. Case six is only 34 months old, but unlike our 
normals of that age who require about 7 or 8 trials 
he needs 18 to form an association. One feels by this 
comparison that the diagnosis of "imbecile" made on 
him is all he can ever fulfill, although by other tests he 
is at present practically normal. 

The seven children in the Waverley Institution who 
tested nearest to normal give us more valuable data 
although the number is unfortunately small. Neverthe- 
less it is an unselected group since all those available 
under 8 years of age were used, being 6 boys and one 
girl. The six boys ranged in age from 57 to 93 months. 
The girl was 81 months old. Three of these tested "at 
age" on the Binet and were on observation with diag- 
nosis deferred. Of the other four three were one year 
and one was three years backward by Binet. 



18^ CHILD BEHAVIOR 



The following table shows the condition fairly well 

Distribution of 7 Borderline Defectives. 

Age Binet Point score on Krasnogor ski Processes Institntion 

Case in Age Binet Yerkes Learn* Recall Un- Re- Diagnosis 

months ing learning Itarning 

A 84 41 16 10 3 3 16 2 Imbecile 



B 70 


41 


17 


9 


5 


2 


8 


2 


Moron 


C 89 


61 


26 


25 


8 


2 


15 


2 


Moron 


D 59 


33 


14 


5 


5 


3 


11 


2 


Deferred 


E 67 


42 


17 


9 


6 


2 


14 


2 


Deferred 


F 93 


72 


32 


37 


5 


2 


14 


2 


Deferred 


G(girl)81 


61 


27 


25 


13 


7 


8 


2 


Probably F. M, 



From this we see that with one exception the defec- 
tive boys learn just about as well as the boys in our un- 
selected group. Indeed, three out of the six learn in 
five trials which seems to be the mode for the unse- 
lected group also. One defective, however, uses eight 
trials. He is 89 months old and tests 26 points by 
the Binet. None of our unselected group of children 
who was over 37 months old or who tested more than 
16 points on the Binet was so slow in forming a con- 
ditioned reflex. When we add that the same boy needed 
15 trials to unlearn the conditioned reflex it is even 
more obvious that he lies without the normal group. 

This diff'erence in the ability to unlearn the condi- 
tioned reflex is marked in the majority of cases. Only 
two of the seven develop unlearning in a number of 
trials which is small enough to lie within the normal 
range of variability. The normal range is 3 to 12 
trials. One of the defectives develops the unlearning 
in 8 and one in 11 trials. Both of these are below 
what they should be on the Binet. This seems more 
than a chance relation when we consider that of the 
boys in our unselected group who were of equal age 
the only ones needing more than 7 trials were the son 
of the woman with the goitre, who took 8, the defec- 
tive boy, taking 9, the son from the family with glandu- 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 183 

lar disturbances using 10, but of these three only the 
defective boy was below by Binet while five boys be- 
tween 32 and 51 months of age, normal, with 12-24 
points on the Binet, use 8-12 trials. 

The one girl tested seems evidently very abnormal — 
using 13 trials to learn, needing seven to recall and 
then eight to unlearn. In spite of the fact that she 
is bright, attractive and playful the experimenter per- 
sonally feels that these three processes give definite evi- 
dence of her mental deficiency as well as of that of the 
six boys, although they all appeared to deviate but 
little from normals on the various Form Boards, etc. 

Two other children who were available were studied. 
These were brothers who had been taken to a public 
clinic for mental examination because they were "not 
getting along well in school." They were diagnosed 
as "not feeble-minded." They are 85 and 75 months 
old respectively. The family is of rather low mental- 
ity even for that of an unskilled laborer and the moth- 
er's relatives are all of greater ability, tending to- 
wards the lower professional class. The mother her- 
self is good natured and easy-going but cleanly and 
she evidently makes the most of her husband's scanty 
wages in caring for five growing children. The father 
seems stupidly intelligent but without any definite vir- 
tues or vices. His mother is reported to have suffered 
from a disease of long-standing which from descrip- 
tion could be nothing but syphilis. The three other 
children, girls, are rather nervous, high-strung and ex- 
citable but are not feeble-minded although the one who 
is in her thirteenth year has begun to fall back from 
leading her class and has had chorea. The other two, 
twins, are seemingly normal but similarly neurotic. 

The older of the two boys, 85 months old, scored 32 



184 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

points by Binet, 29 by Yerkes, did the Form Boards 
readily but if told to hurry became erratic in his move- 
ments ; was up to the normal averages in his grip and 
lung capacity. He developed the conditioned reflex 
in 4 trials, recalled it in 2, developed unlearning in 
7 and releamed in 2 trials. These records are all with- 
in the normal range. He has had a great deal of ill- 
ness since early childhood, and is threatened with tuber- 
culosis of which he has all the gross signs. He has 
a spinal curvature, spay-foot, is chicken-breasted, has 
a very high palate, is generally anaemic and has had nine 
peritonsilar operations. This seems sufficient to ac- 
count for his rather poor school work without implying 
any absolute mental defect but with imperative indica- 
tions that the problem is a physical one. 

With the brother 75 months of age the case is dif- 
ferent. He is and always has been healthy. He is, for 
his age, unusually large, especially when he is com- 
pared with the rest of the family in development. On 
the Binet he scores 6^ years or 27 points, while on the 
Yerkes he scores 25 points. He does the Form Board 
well, fails on the two harder turns of the Adaptation 
Board and completely on the Healy Boards. He takes 
7 trials to develop the conditioned reflex, recalls it in 
2 and then requires 21 trials to unlearn it although he 
then re-learns it in 2. It is not difficult, keeping these 
facts in mind, to see why, although he is not feeble- 
minded by the Binet or Point Scale, he may be actually 
impossible so far as school improvement goes. School 
is the prolonged test of social efficiency and ability to 
adapt and learn which is given all children. 

This boy has the ability to form the conditioned re- 
flex or association as readily as normal children but 
when this simpler situation is complicated by a new 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 185 

condition he can not adapt readily to the new condi- 
tion but his old useless reaction hangs on in its initial 
form. This gives us sufficient insight into his mental- 
make-up to enable us to see readily why he is a school 
failure. He can pick up bits of knowledge, form asso- 
ciations, remember impressions, but he can not utilize 
these experiences in the production of purposive and 
effective reactions in situations which vary constantly. 
The reason for his failure lies in his inherent neural pre- 
disposition or "set." Because of this he fails on the 
real mental test of acquiring an education. The ex- 
perimenter does not doubt in the least but that he will 
eventually prove defective by other mental tests when 
sufficient time has elapsed for him to have reached his 
limit of development. From experience with the other 
group of borderline cases it seems probable that he 
will eventually prove ta be about of the low-grade mo- 
ron type. 

DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS 

The mere execution of a piece of experimenting, such 
as the writer has tried to carry out, tends to the de^ 
velopment in the experimenter of certain "attitudes" 
towards the problem both as regards subject matter 
and technique, while usually certain more general points 
of view develop seemingly unassisted. The statement 
of these, in so far as they would affect further work 
by the experimenter, should be considered an essential 
part of the exposition of the problem. 

The first condition of successful work with young 
children is, in my opinion, a real interest in child life 
and a knowledge of how to handle children in the thou- 
sand and one exigencies of a morning's experience with 
them. To be able to give drinks of water, wash hands, 



186 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

tie up bumps, prevent quarrels and return the chil- 
dren to their homes without any signs of physical or 
mental disturbance is fundamentally a test of ability 
to handle them under experimental conditions. Women 
have an undoubted advantage in this field and partly 
for these reasons. The future of Child Behavior seems 
to the author intimately bound up with the recognition 
of this superior fitness of women for such investiga- 
tions. Needless to say such fitness is only one prerequi- 
site and can not be expected to replace exact training 
in experimental methods. 

And now regarding the children themselves. It is 
fundamentally necessary to consider their state of 
health or fatigue, and their emotional attitude towards 
the experimenter and the experiment as well as to gath- 
er the actual results upon the problem in hand. The 
problem of health can be treated either by eliminating 
all children who are ill or by noting the condition and 
observing its effect upon the results obtained. Fa- 
tigue is a large and serious problem. In this study 
all children were used between nine and half-past eleven 
in the morning, the younger or delicate children on a 
given day being used first. Fatigue symptoms were 
never present in any marked degree in the unselected 
group. Probably the stimulation of the novel situa- 
tion rendered them less liable to fatigue. It appeared 
in a marked degree in the child worked with through 
a number of weeks. 

The emotional attitude can usually be kept favor- 
able. It is far better to tell the child that you will 
allow him to come and play with your playthings than 
to beg him to be a good boy and come. Most children, 
and indeed I know of no exceptions, are as delighted 
to see the queer new things in a laboratory as they 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 187 

are to go to the circus. Then, when they have come, 
this interest can easily be maintained by a deliberate 
presentation of all work as a game, a play, a puzzle 
or a challenge. The time limit becomes a deadly enemy 
to be beaten, often objectified as the racing hand of 
the stop watch. An incredulous "No, I don't believe 
you can do it again" will be sufficient motivation for 
a second attempt of a difficult task from which interest 
departed as soon as it was solved. One little girl of 
four failed upon the Seguin Form Board and said, "The 
blocks wouldn't stick." Five minutes' play in which 
we "made believe" paint them with glue to make them 
stick led to self-confidence, intense effort and joyous 
success. In another instance everything done had to 
be put down on paper in a wonderful system of hiero- 
glyphics so that the successes could be remembered "to 
tell father." All this takes time but it is more than 
worth while. 

The Aussagen or "free reports" of the children which 
denote their attitude towards the experiment are well 
worth jotting down, even though one may make none 
but a personal use of them. For instance, the attitude 
of the children towards my experiment was largely one 
of their attitude towards the feeding. A number of 
them said "Oh, it's candy," "It's fudge," "It's sweet," 
when first fed but by far the greater number of these 
verbal reactions came during the first few trials of the 
period when I was attempting to develop unlearning. 
Some of them only smiled sheepishly or looked at me 
shyly when the bandage was taken off without candy 
having been given. Several asked, "Is the candy all 
gone.?" "Won't I get anj^ more to-day?" while one lit- 
tle girl offered to go to the store and buy me some 
more. Another little fellow broke out into an unusual 



188 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

stutter and said, "You-you-you forgot to give me the 
candy that time." Another counted, "That's two times 
I didn't get any, this is three times." Others contented 
themselves with stating, apparently to the ceiling, that 
they liked candy. One impudently begged, "Give me 
just a little bit this time, won't you.''" Another stated 
circumspectly, "I opened my mouth that thne" and then 
on the next trial, "I opened my mouth again" but, when 
I asked why, she said, "I don't know," although her 
confusion and shy changing of the conversation indi- 
cated that she probably was attempting to give me an 
indirect intimation of her desire for candy. The in- 
sight these reactions give makes interpretation ob- 
viously unnecessary. 

The number of cases used in this study is far too 
small to give results which can be accepted as abso- 
lute and final and I desire to make no dogmatic asser- 
tion of the manner of functioning of the conditioned 
reflexes in children in general. A group of 50 even 
with the control groups of defectives is far too small 
and no one wishes more than I that the number were 
5000. I believe that a more extensive study will show 
that the functioning of the conditioned reflexes is in- 
fluenced by even more factors than I have been able 
to indicate. Consequently these results are presented 
as suggestive and all contradictory evidence is cheer- 
fully invited as that will mean more intensive and ex- 
tensive study of young children. 

The sex differences which I have discussed a num- 
ber of times in this chapter may be thought to be mere 
interpretations of insufficient data, introduced because 
of the writer's personal bias or interest. Quite the re- 
verse is true. All of the first analyses of the findings 
were made without separating into sex groups. It did 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 189 

not seem probable that in a group of fifty children all 
under the age of eight there would be sufficient differ- 
ence to make it worth while considering boys and girls 
separately. However, when all other factors had been 
accounted for there were still irregularities in the dis- 
tributions which could not be accounted for but these 
disappeared when as a last resort the two sexes were 
considered separately. 

A point which may be of interest to clinical psycholo- 
gists is the fact that in every instance the observation 
of the child during the experiment gave reactions visi- 
ble to the eye in the same trial as their earliest develop- 
ment showed in the kymograph record. Indeed often 
the record showed a curve due to cough, a laugh, a 
shrugging or twisting of the head which could only be 
understood because the child had been closely watched 
and because after each trial, his general behavior had 
been written down. Very often the exact situation was 
more vividly expressed by the general body position, 
tension and deep breathing than by the mouth opening 
itself. For clinical purposes one might easily apply the 
method without any apparatus. 

I have made no attempt to evaluate the curves re- 
cording the reactions. Krasnogorski explains his 
curves as representing first a mouth opening and then 
succeeding that a series of swallowing movements. My 
results were not so uniform. With some children this 
type of reaction appeared but with others the mouth 
would open two or three times with swallowing move- 
ments interspersed. In other cases the mouth would 
be opened wide, gradually closing, and the swallowing 
curves would be scattered along this decreasing curve. 
In others breathing was so violent as to give an addi- 
tional complicating factor in the curves while with 



190 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

others lip movement (not recorded) was the chief re- 
action and the swallowing movements were very faint 
and mouth opening entirely lacking. 

The use of so many auxiliary means of studying the 
child perhaps needs further emphasis. If the study 
of young children is to lead us to a factually based 
concept of the child's behavior all of the facts ascer- 
tained regarding him must be empirically welded into 
a synthesis. This can not be done if we completely 
isolate the study of any one process from that of all 
others. Hence each study undertaken should involve 
at least two distinct processes and the results obtained 
from the two should be correlated. Another experi- 
menter by selecting one of these processes and a new 
one can thus not only contribute new data but he has 
a means of correlating all of his work with that of 
the first investigator. 

Another just as important reason is the need of 
knowing about any one child all the factors which may 
influence the results. For this purpose social condi- 
tions, heredity, sex, age, general health, and as many 
other items as possible should be considered. Kras- 
nogorski may have considered these but he presents no 
data. He claims a clinical significance for the condi- 
tioned reflex but does not present his criteria. If the 
cases he used were already defective enough to be diag- 
nosed without this method little benefit accrues from 
it. Consequently in this study the variety of proce- 
dures used has a double purpose. 

It makes an attempt to begin a correlative study of 
the measures usually applied in the study of any child 
with the aim of placing him relative to his group. It 
also gives a number of evaluations of each individual 
child which enables one to more clearly analyze out the 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 191 

possible factors determining why he holds this or that 
place in the group. Because of the former need the 
correlation coefficients of the various tests have been 
calculated. The second usage is illustrated in the in- 
dividual case illustrations where an explanation of a 
varying factor in one process aids in interpreting devia- 
tions within the group when it is studied from the 
aspect of some other process. 

This latter point is beautifully illustrated in the case 
of children in the same family. There are individual 
conditions as well as the family and social conditions 
affecting both alike. Differences which remain when 
age and sex have been evaluated can hardly be attrib- 
uted to "just individual differences" any more logi- 
cally than they can to chance errors of experimentation 
unless we find the same variation in other corroborating 
findings and these can not be picked up by chance after- 
wards but must be a part of the original data. 

The opportunity of studying children under one year 
of age was lacking in the village where the unselected 
group was observed. Consequently it resolves itself 
into a separate departure which the author has not yet 
attacked. Krasnogorski states that the conditioned 
reflex can with difficulty be established in the second 
half year of life but not until then does it reach its 
functional perfection. This arbitrary determination 
of a starting place seems either a conclusion based up- 
on a few failures, probably under unpsychological con- 
ditions, or else it may be a logical deduction. Present 
knowledge of child development would tend to lead in- 
stead to a belief that the ability to form some kinds 
of associations is present in some degree from the time 
of birth. The development of the association may be 
more difficult, that is require more trials, and it may 



192 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

not be possible within the first day or two due to the 
enormous adaptive changes taking place within the 
organism. But this very potentiality for adaptation to 
the new environment is a type of learning and promises 
interesting results. Moreover, plenty of evidence has 
been found by observation and in the biographical and 
genetic studies. 

When a child has learned to stop the hungry cry 
first when he feels the breast, later when he is picked 
up and still later when he is spoken to this is a con- 
ditioned reflex. The touch or sight stimulation is a 
conditioned stimulus and has been associated with the 
feeding. Such associations are reported in very young 
children by Preyer, Stern, Shinn, Mrs. Hall and Dear- 
born, while the writer observed a conditioned crying 
in a child 10 days old, fed, warm and dry, who cried 
until taken up and held and who repeated crying as 
soon as he was laid down. It was reported that this 
had happened at the same time each day since the 
seventh day. 

The use of abnormal and borderline cases together 
with an unselected group seems doubly advantageous 
to the writer. If a process is fundamentally necessary 
for normal functioning there should in all probability 
be greater deviations from the norm among defectives 
than in the unselected group. The "edges" of the two 
should, in all probability, overlap. If the process is 
so generally non-variable that it is the same in de- 
fectives as in normals we must evaluate it less highly 
in the normal child and seek elsewhere for an explana- 
tion of why all are not equally gifted. 

The question might easily be raised as to why the 
results are not compared in detail with the results 
obtained in other studies. For instance, this study in- 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 193 

dicates a direct relation between learning and effective 
retention. This is in agreement with the findings of 
Henderson (76), who used meaningful material. He, 
also, as I have, found that the older subjects tended 
to learn more rapidly than the younger ones. Nors- 
worthy (123) also finds the rapid learner retains bet- 
ter and Busemann (M) is inclined to accept this view 
while Lyon (111) not only confirms this point but 
finds women and girls do better on initial learning while 
men and boys retain better. However, he finds many 
exceptions for "illogical" material. All of these 
studies as well as those on inhibition have been made 
on older subjects and have used verbal Aufgaben and 
chiefly verbal learning material. This study differs not 
only in the age of subjects but especially in method 
and material. Consequently minute comparisons are 
left to the reader interested therein. 

The principle underlying experimentation with the 
conditioned reflex is, however, not as different from 
that usually employed in the learning process as it ap- 
pears at the first glance. In the learning process both 
nonsense syllables and meaningful words are used. 
These are always grouped and a single task may in- 
volve 10, 12 or, it may be hundreds of units. In the 
study of the conditioned reflex this task is simplified. 
The child learns only one unit. The stimulus is one 
that is arbitrarily chosen and is undoubtedly meaning- 
less to the child from the standpoint of our idea of 
the reaction to be developed. Meaning gradually ac- 
crues, that is new associations are formed between the 
sensations from the conditioned stimulus and other 
sensations and responses. Because of this simplification 
of material the determination of retentiveness combines 
easily the method of saving with that of the determi- 



194 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

nation of retained members. The stimulus is applied. 
If the reaction occurs at once the member is retained 
but if it does not occur the chocolate "help" is given 
again and relearning is begun. Thus sub-liminal traces 
are as easily and accurately evaluated as actually re- 
tained associations. 

The voluntary comments made by the children indi- 
cate that the stimulus rapidly develops meaning for 
them. The meaning appealed to is the most funda- 
mental one of a living, growing organism — food. This 
appeal probably facilitates learning and it may be that 
it increases the ease of retention. Consequently a new 
series of problems opens up at this point. The method 
probably is the only one we have to-day which offers 
a chance to study meaning and affective values in young 
children. The relative values of food eaten, seen, 
touched, mentioned; of pleasant, unpleasant and new 
stimuli ; of commendation and actual reward may easily 
be studied simply by varying the stimulus quality, in- 
tensity or modality. 

And now a few words more about the more general 
uses of the method. It is easily applicable with very 
young children. It is independent of the acquisition 
of speech and hence enables one to study the develop- 
ment of mental processes without considering the lan- 
guage factor. It can however be linked up with speech 
studies in various ways. For instance, an auditory 
stimulus may be used as the conditioning stimulus. 
This may just as easily be a nonsense syllable as the 
ringing of a metronome. It might even be possible 
to develop discrimination of nonsense syllables by using 
feeding when one is said and not with the others. The 
relative value of auditory, visual, cutaneous, motor and 
thermal stimulations may be sfepdied by comparing the 



STUDY OF CONDITIONED REFLEX 195 

length of time necessary to develop conditional reflexes 
to each of these. Naturally this must be done in one 
and the same child and as there may be a transfer of 
attitude or attention from one series to another the 
series must be studied in various children in different 
orders of development. Sensory discrimination and 
specificity and memorial functioning of stimuli of va- 
rious modalities may also be studied and may throw 
some light upon the better modalities of presentation 
for best learning and retention. The verbal Aufgabe 
may be introduced and its efi^ect show relatively. Both 
the negative and positive Aufgabe may be studied thus. 
So far as an investigation of the factors influencing 
the learning process is concerned this method allows 
of such wide variation that time factors, eff^ect of fre- 
quency and distribution of stimulations, of intensity 
and complexity of stimuli, of modes of presentation, 
quality of stimuli, of eff^ect of afl^ective toning, near 
and distance stimulation may all be studied while the 
child thinks he is playing a game. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CONCLUSIONS 

T HAVE tried to present briefly the facts which a 
"■• survey of child study gives, disregarding details 
but stressing in a broader more synthetic fashion the 
factors influencing its development. 

Child study has been the outcome of a new conscious- 
ness in the race and society which has focused upon 
the child as its most valuable asset. The first studies 
made of the young child were motivated primarily by 
ethical, moral, religious and educational aims. Not 
the child's abilities or unfolding mental processes as 
such were the object of study but they were regarded 
as means of giving him training and education. The 
study of the child as such, for his own sake, was not 
properly emphasized by any one before Schleiermacher. 
Even after his formulation of childhood for the sake 
of the child it took many years, a quarter of a cen- 
tury in fact, before we find any expression of interest 
in the child's person, his body and mind, motivated by 
a purely scientific desire for a better knowledge of the 
child himself. 

Then in the work of Sigismund, Kussmaul, and their 
followers comes the beginning of careful observations 
of child nature. These studies do not, however, issue 
from psychological or educational circles but are the 
work primarily of physicians. Physiological methods 
and theories were sufficiently well evolved to permit in- 

196 



CONCLUSIONS 197 

vestigation of physical functions. Psychology had not 
yet developed far enough to have even a method that 
might be used for any such studies. 

As psychology gradually devised its experimental 
methods these were based largely upon introspection 
and the study of the young child seemed consequently 
limited to observation. This was considered a handi- 
cap and for some time undoubtedly proved a rather 
effective deterrent to quantitative experimental studies 
under controlled conditions. Nor had these as yet 
evolved their independent procedures. This tendency 
to observational study of children was also favored 
by the difficulty of gaining permission to study any 
large number of children during the years before the 
kindergarten age. In this early period the social 
group of the child is that of the family and he is not 
segregated with a large number of his kind unless he 
is in an abnormal physical or mental condition and 
committed to a hospital or institution. 

With the added impetus and suggestion given by the 
popular interest in evolutionary theory, genetic or de- 
velopmental studies were vigorously and assiduously 
compiled. The external expressions of the child 
through language were also studied both from a gene- 
tic standpoint because of the interest in his develop- 
ment of the language function and also from the stand- 
point of indirect observation because it was assumed 
that his use of language gave a fair index of his men- 
tal processes. For the first purpose the studies were 
usually intensive and of only one or two children and 
mostly made during the first three years of life while 
for the latter they tended to become contributive to 
education and the subjects were usually children of 
five or six years of age who were just entering school. 



198 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

The intermediate period of two or three years re- 
mained almost entirely unexplored. 

The child's movements were also used as a means 
of studying his mental processes. For instance : grasp- 
ing was made a means of studying color discrimina- 
tion and color preference. These studies most nearly 
approximate the requirements of scientific experimen- 
tation, allowing of control of conditions and giving 
easily evaluated results but their use seems limited to 
a very narrow field. 

Individual studies have not been confined to these 
fields of physiological psychology, language and motor 
development but have touched almost all subjects per- 
tinent to psychology. As a whole, however, either the 
number of children used has been very small, the method 
faulty or the findings so mixed up with inference and 
discussion that the results are equivocal from the 
standpoint of their empirical value. The psychogenetic 
or biographical studies were and are valuable. They 
have been the pioneer path-breakers that indicate the 
extent of the problem confronting us but now exact 
definitization of facts demands quantitative studies un- 
der controlled experimental conditions and an unbiased 
presentation of the results obtained. 

Some such experimental investigations have lately 
been made by those interested in Comparative Psy- 
chology. They have used various of the objective 
methods upon children with rather favorable results. 
In so far as they have been interested in animal rather 
than human psychology their work shows unmistakable 
errors. Although making comparisons of the results 
obtained upon children and other animals they intro- 
duce great variants in procedure when dealing with 
the two. The verbal Aufgabe with children takes the 



CONCLUSIONS 199 

place of objective sense stimuli used with the animals 
or if objective stimuli are given they are such as appeal 
differently in the two cases. The number of children, 
with the exception of Katz' studies, is very small. In 
general, the reports show that the experimenters were 
working with inadequate and often erroneous ideas of 
what the child as a type means. 

This attempted use of purely objective methods in 
the study of the child's behavior is a decided advance, 
however, for errors in technique can easily be remedied 
and, although most of the methods used so far have 
been rather unwieldy and cumbersome, we can see now 
the theoretical and objective basis from the use of 
which the experimental psychology of the young child 
will rise. This new attitude towards the child con- 
ceives of him as an organism peculiarly adapted to 
growth and functional responses to the external stimuli 
among which he lives. Our information concerning this 
organism, its peculiarities and abilities, is best in- 
creased by studying the variations of its behavior un- 
der controlled or definitely ascertained conditions of 
stimulation. These variations may be changes in be- 
havior of growth and structure formation or they may 
be changes in function. The study of the latter 
changes in so far as they relate to or are neural in 
character is peculiarly the property of psychology. 
These changes are not, however, to be thought of as 
existing independently of or uninfluenced by the charac- 
teristics of the organism considered as a whole. 

The chief impetus towards the formulation of this 
concept of the psychology of the infant has come from 
the Pavlov school, especially as it has been applied to 
human beings by Bechterew and Krasnogorski. The 
work of Bechterew, followed by that of Watson in 



200 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

this country, is less significant for the study of the 
young child than is that of Krasnogorski. Most of 
Bechterew's work has been developed upon the punish- 
ment motivation to protective response. In children 
this induces attitudes towards the situation which are 
absolutely antagonistic to the purpose we have in mind 
of studying the child's reactions under normal condi- 
tions. 

Krasnogorski more nearly fulfills the demands our 
concept of the child makes upon us. His assertions of 
the value of the method of conditioned reflexes as a 
means of studying young children pointed to a further 
study of the method itself as necessary and probably 
valuable. His work is, however, distinctly medical and 
the terminology needed interpretation and assimilation 
into that of our psychological studies while his method 
needed refining and standardization. 

A careful study of the terminology shows that the 
conditioned reflex is neither more nor less than an 
association developed between an arbitrarily de- 
termined stimulus and some response habitually caused 
by some other stimulus. This response may be one 
functioning in everyday life, or as used by Bechterew, 
is itself sometimes an artificially developed response. 

Experimentation with the method verifies Krasno- 
gorski's claims for it. It can easily be adapted to vary- 
ing and multiform conditions. 

The conditioned reflex can easily be established in 
normal children of one year of age and in defectives 
mentally much less. The lower age limit of its pos- 
sible development in normals has not yet been ascer- 
tained. 

The results obtained from the use of this method 
upon a total of 67 children are as follows: 



CONCLUSIONS aOl 

Unselected group. 

1. The learning of a conditioned reflex requires from 
3 to 9 trials in normal children. This is a nar- 
rower range than that found by Krasnogorski. 

2. The number of trials required decreases as age 
increases up to the age of 60 months, above this age 
the results are less regular. 

3. The number of trials required is also influenced 
by sex. Under two years of age the boys learn more 
rapidly than girls of the same age. Above two this 
order is reversed. The number of trials required va- 
ries more among the girls than with the boys. 

4. With children of the same age those who learn 
more rapidly are also brighter as measured by the re- 
sults obtained through the use of the Binet and Yerkes 
scales. 

5. With children learning in the same number of 
trials the older ones have higher ratings on the Binet 
and Yerkes scales. 

6. In general there is a slight tendency for the chil- 
dren who are more rapid in learning the association to 
be more rapid in performance of the Seguin Form 
Board, although when we study the order of merit for 
Form Board ability we find the most rapid learners 
on the Krasnogorski method are medium in their abil- 
ity there. 

7. Those who are more rapid in learning are also 
more apt to succeed upon the Adaptation Board. In 
general the number of trials completed upon the Adap- 
tation Board is in inverse order when compared with 
the number of trials for learning, the distribution of 
the boys being more regular. 

8. The number of trials needed for learning de- 
creases as the grip ability increases. This holds in 



20^ CHILD BEHAVIOR 

lesser degree for the grip-height index and most mark- 
edly in the grip-weight index. 

9. The rate of learning increases as the spirometer 
ability increases. This is also true of the vital in- 
dices. 

10. After a twenty-four-hour interval the condi- 
tioned reflex functions at once in over seventy per 
cent of the unselected group. 

11. The number of trials needed for releaming va- 
ries only from S to 7, being less than the learning 
range. 

12. This variability in retention appears independ- 
ent of the age of the child. 

13. There is a moderate relation between learning 
ability and retention. The most rapid learners retain 
best and their average score, which without exception 
was one of complete retention, is equaled by only one 
other group, the one which learned most slowly. Those 
intermediate in learning ability are less successful in 
retaining. 

14. The range of trials required for releaming is 
less among the girls than among the boys. 

15. The mechanism of inhibition or unlearning of 
the association was developed in 41 of the unselected 
group. The youngest nine reacted antagonistically to 
the situation which confronted them in the attempt to 
develop the unlearning and hence scored failures on 
this process. 

16. The number of trials needed for developing the 
inhibition or unlearning ranged from 3 to 12, the 
range being greater for the boys than for the girls. 

17. In general the number of trials needed for un- 
learning the conditioned reflex decreases as age in- 
creases. 



CONCLUSIONS a03 

18. There are marked sex differences, more of the 
boys developing the unlearning rapidly, more of the 
girls requiring a greater number of trials. 

19. The number of trials needed for unlearning tends 
to decrease as the number of trials needed for learning 
increases. This relation is more constant among the 
boys than among the girls. 

20. There is a slight indication that the number of 
trials needed for effecting unlearning is greater the 
fewer the number of trials needed for memorial re- 
functioning or re-learning after a twenty-four-hour in- 
terval. (This would be in accordance with Jost's 

law.) 

ai. For children of the same age the number of trials 
needed for developing unlearning is in all but one in- 
stance greater for the girls than for the boys. 

22. For all the children developing unlearning in 
the same number of trials the mental age by Binet in- 
creases as the chronological age increases when sub- 
division is made according to sex. The regularity of 
distribution by the Yerkes age is slightly less. 

23. In the children of any one chronological age, 
grouped according to the number of trials they re- 
quired to develop an inhibition or unlearn the condi- 
tioned reflex, the situation is more complex. For boys 
the mental age by Binet or Yerkes increases, up to a 
certain point, as the number of trials required in- 
creases, then for those requiring more trials the men- 
tal age is less. This relation is different in children 
of different ages. For girls the distribution indicates 
that the duller children require more nearly the median 
number of trials, the brighter children developing an 
inhibition in either a lesser or a greater number of 
trials. 



^04 CHILD BEHAVIOR 

24. There is a slight indication that those children 
who are more rapid in unlearning can complete the 
Seguin Form Board with better time records than those 
who unlearn slowly. 

25. The number of turns of the Adaptation Board 
which are successfully completed is greater among 
those children who unlearn more rapidly. 

26. There appears to be a slight positive relation 
between the increase in average grip and the decrease 
in number of trials necessary to develop unlearning. 
This relation is less marked when we use the grip in- 
dices. 

27. There is practically no relation between the 
vital indices and the number of trials necessary to ef- 
fect inhibition or unlearning of the conditioned re- 
flexes. 

28. The relearning of or re-establishment of the 
conditioned reflex functions without much perceptible 
difference in children of all ages and both sexes, al- 
though there are several individual variants. The sig- 
nificance of these can not be established without further 
work at this point. 

Defectives. 

29. The learning process in defectives is such that 
they require anywhere from 3 to 18 trials to develop 
a conditional reflex. 

30. The number of trials needed for this learning is 
not directly proportional to the mental ability of the 
child but is also relative to his chronological age. 

31. The range of number of trials needed to de- 
velop a reaction after 24 hours is the same as that in 
the unselected group, 2-7. However, instead of over 
10% using only 2 trials we have here but 4 out of 
7 or 51% with whom 2 trials were sufficient. 



CONCLUSIONS 205 

32. Although only two of the defectives studied were 
girls there is an indication that with this group as 
well as with the unselected group there are important 
sex differences. 

33. The number of trials required for inhibition or 
unlearning varies from 8 to 21. 

34. The association or conditioned reflex is in every 
instance relearned or redeveloped in two trials. 

35. The greatest deviation of these borderline defec- 
tives as a group from the unselected group lies in the 
number of trials necessary for the development of un- 
learning. Only three of the defective group effect this 
in a number of trials which lies within the range of 
normal performance and this overlapping is true only 
when the two groups are treated as wholes. If we 
place any defective girl or boy in the unselected group 
in the place where he would belong by virtue of his 
age, sex and mentality as measured by the Binet or 
Yerkes scale he will be outside the range of variations 
of the unselected group in the number of trials he 
needs to develop unlearning. The only case in the un- 
selected group with which any one from the defective 
group is homogeneous in behavior in unlearning is the 
little son of the feeble-minded man and the insane wo- 
man. 

36. In the case of children whom other tests leave 
undiagnosed or unprognosed these methods indicate a 
procedure which makes a more fundamental test of the 
mental processes and consequently they discriminate 
potential defectives and psychasthenics in a way that 
is more highly prognostic than are the results of any 
other test now employed. 

37. The method seems even more valuable because 
its findings upon any one child seem to indicate that 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 

the conditioned reflex processes are influenced in the 
rate of their functioning by sex, age, heredity ; are cor- 
related with ability upon other tests, with measure- 
ments like grip and lung capacity and are probably 
influenced by glandular disturbances. As a result 
they give us in a simple numerical form a rating which 
facilitates our comprehension of the total endowment 
Nature has given the child. 

By no means, however, do I wish it to be thought 
that I favor the use of the Krasnogorski processes in 
place of other methods in clinical examination. In- 
stead I believe that the study of the individual child 
for the purpose of prognosis or merely for a better 
understanding of his nature is not to be accomplished 
by the esoteric usage of any individual method, no 
matter how high its claims. Just as binocular vision 
gives us a third dimension so every additional line of 
approach to a child's mental processes allows us to 
understand and evaluate them more fully. 

No child should be diagnosed as normal or abnor- 
mal unless he has been studied from every possible as- 
pect. This idea has been emphasized by Fernald (44). 
Everj'^ child must be surveyed through the eyeglasses of 
anthropometrical measurements, heredity, his history 
from the time of conception, his educational history, 
present and functioning educational acquisitions, his 
general knowledge gained from experience in his social 
group outside school, his social, moral and economic 
reactions as well as from the viewpoint of exact meas- 
urement of mental processes. Of course the pre-school 
child is too young to have much of a history in several 
of these lines and hence it is even more important that 
the others be accurately evaluated. I do think, how- 
ever, that experiments such as the Krasnogorski which 



CONCLUSIONS 207 

deal with definite neutral situations are more funda- 
mental and as they become more numerous will tend to 
replace the arbitrary tests of acquired knowledge. 

But one thing needs to be kept in mind. The child 
is an individual and must be treated and studied as 
such whether he as an individual is the whole problem 
or only one of a group forming the subject matter 
of a problem. No success may be ascribed to studies 
which disregard this fact. The day for the mere ab- 
straction of one item, its cold manipulation and the 
absolute deduction of facts therefrom is past. We 
must realize the eternal interplay of all of the many 
factors in the child and his environment. The more of 
these we can grasp the nearer shall we come to the 
explanation and understanding of any one of them. 
This does not mean not submitting the child to arbi- 
trary laboratory conditions for studying him. Give 
him if you will time limits within which he must do 
so and so or must not do so and so, but keep the con- 
ditions constant for that problem, noting as many fac- 
tors in the situation as you yourself are aware of. Only 
by doing this shall we come to an understanding of 
the whys and the wherefores which make of the child a 
growing and functioning unity. 



CURVES ILLUSTRATING THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF CONDITIONED REFLEXES 

In all curves the dash in the topmost line represents 
the moment of feeding. 

The second line is the record of the throat and chin 
movements of the child. 

The bottom line is the time recorded in seconds. 



Case 31. — Gertrude, aged 61 months, who tests 62 by the Binet and 
5.0 by the Point. 



Trial 1. — Child lying quiet 
until fed. 




Trial, 2. — Child not react- 
ing before she was fed. 




209 



210 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



Trial 3. — Mouth opened 
before feeding. 




Tkial 4. — Mouth again 
opened before the feed- 
ing. 




Case 31, after 24 hours. 



Tkial 1. — Reaction 
ing. 



before feed- 




DEVELOPMENT OF REFLEXES 211 



Trial 2. — Reaction before feed- 
ing, child not fed but un- 
learning begun. 




Trial 3. — Reaction to bandage, no 
feeding. 




Trial 4. — Reaction to bandage, no 
feeding. 




212 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



Tbial 5. 



-Marked and violent re- 
action. 




Trial 6. — Continued reaction. 




Tbial 7. — Reaclion continued. 




DEVELOPMENT OF REFLEXES 213 



Trial 8. — Almost quiet. 




Trial 9. — Slight swallowing. 




Trial 10. — Violent mouth opening and 
swallowing. 




214 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



Trial 11. 



-No reaction throughout the 
period. 




Trial 12. — Child quiet until fed. 
Unlearning was perfected and 
re-learning begun. 




Trial 13.— Re-learning effected. 
Child opens her mouth before 
time for feeding. 




SELECTED RECORDS FROM OTHER CASES 

ILLUSTRATING VARIOUS STAGES IN THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF CONDITIONED REFLEXES 



Case 30, Margaret, 59 months old, 
Binet 6*. Learning was de- 
veloped in 4 trials, and func- 
tion was immediate after 24 
hours. This is the reaction 
upon the sixth trial for ef- 
fecting unlearning. Child lay 
tense with heavy breathing 
and opened mouth. Two more 
trials were needed for un- 
learning. 




Case 39, Clarence, 73 months old, 
Binet 6^ Learning required 
6 trials and recall after 24 
hours was immediate. Ac- 
companying curve shows un- 
learning fully developed and 
re-learning begun after only 
4 trials. 




Case 23, Jackie, 51 months old, 
Binet 5*. Curve shows learn- 
ing fully developed and 
marked reaction before feed- 
ing on this, the third trial. 
In this case unlearning re- 
quired 9 trials. 




215 



216 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



Case 24, Marie, 51 months old, 
Binet 5^. Learning required 
5 trials, recall was immediate 
but unlearning took 10 trials. 
Re-learning was then begun. 
This curve shows the third 
trial for re-learning which 
evidenced itself on the fourth 
trial. No reaction before 
feeding. 




Case 19, Russell, 48 months old, 
Binet 5^. Learning complete 
on this the fifth trial. Re- 
call after 24 hours required 3 
trials and unlearning 7 but 
re-learning only 2 trials. 




Case 12, James, 36 months old, 
Binet 3*. After forming the 
association in 7 trials he re- 
calls in 2 trials and then 
takes 12 trials to unlearn. 
The curves show the ninth 
and eleventh trials in the de- 
velopment of unlearning. 





DEVELOPMENT OF REFLEXES 217 



Case 12, Ray. 34 months 
old, Binet 4i. Learn- 
ing took 6 trials and 
recall 3 trials while 
unlearning took 6 
trials. The sixth trial 
for unlearning and the 
first feeding for re- 
learning are shown 
in this curve. 




Case 25, Alice, 51 months 
old, Binet 4^. Learn- 
ing took 3 trials and 
recall was immediate 
after 24 hours. Un- 
learning took 8 and 
re-learning 2 trials. 
The curve shows the 
fourth trial at unlearn- 
ing, given after she 
had said, "Give me 
a piece of candy this 
time." "Psychic stim- 
ulation" is surely at 
work. 




Case G, Esther, 81 months 
old, Binet 6\ She de- 
veloped the association 
in 13 trials. Its ap- 
pearance is shown in 
curves for the eleventh 
and twelfth trials re- 
produced here. She 
took 7 trials for the 
24 hour recall, 8 to 
unlearn and 2 to re- 
learu. 




gl8 



CHILD BEHAVIOR 



Case P, Crahil, 93 months 
old, Binet 72. He 
learned in 5 trials and 
recalled in 2 but took 
14 to unlearn. Curves 
12 and 13 are pre- 
sented here and show 
the disappearance of 
the reaction. He re- 
learned in 2 trials. 




Henry, 75 months old, 
Binet 62. This is the 
boy who could not get 
along in school but 
who by other tests is 
apparently normal. 
The curves show the 
nineteenth and twenty- 
first trials given in an 
attempt to have him 
unlearn the reaction 
learned in 7 trials. 
He reacts in the nine- 
teenth but has by the 
twenty-first been quiet 
twice successively and 
re-learning is begun. 





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INDEX 



Activity, as reflex, 66 ; potential- 
ity for, 70. 

Adaptation, 71, 102. 

Adaptation board, 111, 142, 171- 
173, 179, 204. 

Affective values, 194. 

Ahil, 119-120. 

"Analysers," 80-82, 89. 

Anencephalic child, 92. 

Anthropometric measurements, 

111, 142-143, 174-180. 
Apparatus, 27, 75-76, 102 ; child's 

adjustment to, 107. 

Artificial stimulus, 64, 77 ; see 
also conditioned stimulus. 

Association, 67, 90, 92 ; condi- 
tioned, 140 ; formation of, 45, 
59, 147 ; verbal, 92 ; see also 
learning. 

Attitude of child, 96, 100, 109, 
186. 

Attitude towards child, Christian, 
13, 196 ; genetic, 19, 197 ; 
Greek, 13 ; pedagogical, 16, 17, 
46, 196 ; psychological, 49, 51, 
198-199; religious, 17, 18, 196. 

Aufgabe, 195 ; use of, 58, 60, 195 ; 
verbal, 51, 58, 109, 147. 

Aussage tests, 44, 

Aussagen, 128, 129, 187-188, 
194. 

Autobiographies, 18, 39. 

Baldwin, 28, 37, 72. 
Bechterew, 65-66, 69, 199-200. 
Behavior, aim of, 55 ; study of, 

33, 52, 53fle. 
Bickel, 68, 72, 
Binet, 41, 43, 44, 110, 128, 141, 

161-168, 169, 178, 179, 201, 

203, 205. 
Biographies of children, 18, 21, 

22, 25, 28, 30, 33, 39. 
Bogen, 68-69, 72. 
Borderline cases, 112, 180-183. 

Child an organism, 70-71, 199. 
Child behavior defined, 7. 
Child behavior problems, 8. 
Children, entering school, 19, 20, 
28, 47; "not feeble-minded," 

112, 164, 183-185 ; under 1 year 
old, 191 ; unselected group, 48, 
95, 103fle, 137fiE. 



Child's Congress, 31. 

Child study, 56, 196 ; America, 
28, 29, 30; anthropological, 23, 
30 ; autobiographies, 18, 39 ; 
Belgium, 24 ; biographical, 18, 
21, 22, 25, 28, 30, 33, 39 ; clas- 
sification, 32-33 ; color discrim- 
ination, 22, 23, 25, 27, 36, 37, 
87, 198; Denmark, 30; diffi- 
culties with younger children, 
48-49 ; England, 26-27 ; factors 
influencing, 42 ; first record, 
15 ; founder, 16 ; France, 24- 
25, 30 ; genetic, 36, 197 ; Ger- 
many, 22-24, 30; history of, 
23, 25 ; language, 19, 21, 23, 
2^, 28, 32, 36-37, 45-47, 197; 
physio - psychological, 19-21, 
32 ; Poland, 30 ; Portugal, 31 ; 
results of, 32ff ; Russia, 26 ; 
social customs, 23 ; specializa- 
tion in, 30 ; theory of, 70-71, 
199 ; use of term, 6. 

Chronological ago, 140, 146-147, 
148-153, 165-166, 167, 201, 
202, 203, 

Classification of child study, 32- 
33. 

Clinical procedure, 189 ; value, 
86, 93, 189, 205-206. 

Color discrimination, 22, 23, 25, 
27, 36, 37, 87, 198. 

Comenius, 14. 

Conditioned reflexes, 64-67, 73- 

93, 94, 200ff; "analysers." 80- 
82, 89; apparatus, 75-76, 94, 
95, 102 ; applicability, 194-195 ; 
characteristics or, 64 ; condi- 
tioned centers, 82 ; conditioned 
inhibitions, 83, 91, 100 ; condi- 
tioned stimulus, 75, 97 ; devel- 
opment of, 64, 79ff, 92, 115- 
127, 128 ; developmental stages, 
82, 126-127, 130ff, 209-218 ; dis- 
crimination of stimuli, 124, 126- 
127, 131, 133, 134 ; formation 
of, 64, 68-69, 75, 79, S2ff, 95fl, 
148 ; in defectives, 79, 81, 82, 

94, 103, 112, 113-127, 204-205, 
217-218 ; learning of. 68, 76, 85, 
90, 140, 147-152, 153, 154, 156- 
159, 164-168, 169. 172, 178, 
192, 201-202, 204, 209-210, 
215, 216; loading and dis- 



237 



INDEX 



charge," 83-85 ; mechanisms, 
79, 83, 85-86, 91, 127; me- 
morial conditioning, 84, 90, 
134 ; memorial effect of stimu- 
lus, 78, 89 ; memorial function- 
ing of, 76ff, 99, 102, 116-118, 
120, 122, 123, 135, 140-141, 
152-154, 202 ; method, 63, 65, 
73, 76, 86-87, 97; pathological 
differentiation, 79-84 ; see also 
clinical value ; principle of, 
89-92, 193-194; re-agents, 76, 
94, 95, 104, 112 ; relearning of, 

101, 102, 141, 160-161, 202- 
203, 205, 214-217; renewal, 
77ff ; see also relearning ; re- 
sults obtained by Krasnogorski, 
76-83, 89, 147, 148, 156, 191, 
199-200 ; retention of, 102, 128, 
134, 152-154, 202, 210-211; 
specificity of, 77, 80, 82, 129, 
130, 131, 132, 133; stimulus, 
natural, 64, 114 ; stimulus, 
used, 74, 76, 114 ; time inter- 
val, 87-88, 97-98, 99; uncondi- 
tioned stimulus, 64, 75, 114 ; 
unlearning, 77ff, 85, 90, 100, 

102, 133, 141, 154-159, 166- 
167, 172, 178, 202, 203-204, 
205, 211-214, 215, 216, 217, 
218 

Conditioned stimulus, 64, 75, 97; 

modification of, 114. 
Correlation coefiicients. 143-146. 
Correlative study, 6, 7, 190. 
Curves, evaluation, 189-190, 209- 

218, 

Defectives, 79, 81, 82, 85, 94, 96, 
112, 113-127, 180-195, 204-205, 
217, 218; borderline, 112; 
learning of, 85, 180-182, 204; 
study of, 96, 103, 113-127, 180- 
183, 204-205 ; unlearning, 85, 
182-183, 205. 

Delayed reactions, 58-59. 

Diaries, child study, 33. 

Digestive glands, 62-65. 

Discussion, 185ff, 

Drawings of children, 47-48, 

Dynamometer findings ; see psy- 
chomotor measurements. 

Emotional attitude, 186, 
Experimental studies, 51, 56-60. 
Experiments, place of, 34, 35, 
36, 37-38, 42, 49-51, 

Fatigue, 89, 98, 186. 
Forgetting, 102 ; see also reten- 
tion. 

Games, 47. 

Garbini, 25. 

George, 125-127. 

Goddard, 110, 111, 146, 171. 



Grip ; see psychomotor measure- 
ments. 
Growth as a factor, 70-71, 199. 

Habit, 54-55, 70, 90, 92. 

Hall, 28, 29, 40, 46. 

Hamilton, 56, 60, 

Handling children, 102-108, 185- 
186, 

Healy boards, 110, 173. 

Height ; see anthropometric meas- 
urements. 

Hunter, 58-60. 

Idiots, 79, 81, 82, 94, 103, 113- 

127, 
Individual, studies of, 18, 21, 22, 

25, 28, 30, 33, 39, 
Instinct, 54-55, 70. 
Intelligence tests, 30, 41, 86. 
Interest, 185, 
Interrelation of studies, 33. 

Jock, 123-125. 
John, 122-123, 
Jorsi, 120-122. 

Katz, 50, 51, 60. 

Krasnogorski, 72, 73-86, 96-97, 

147, 148, 156, 191, 199-200; 

criticism of, 86-93. 

Language, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 32, 
36-37, 45-47, 197 ; quantitative 
studies of, 37. 

L'Annee Psychologique, 24. 

Learning, 51, 68, 71, 76, 85, 90, 
140, 147-152, 153, 154, 156- 
159, 164-168, 169, 172, 178, 
192, 201-202, 204, 209-210, 215, 
216, 217. 

Learning in defectives, 113-127. 

Learning process, 47, 68, 195, 

Leitba, 115-118. 

"Loading and discharge," 83-85. 

Lombroso, Paola, 25. 

Lung capacity ; see psychomotor 
measurements. 

Machado, 31. 

Maze, 58. 

Memory, 47, 67, 102, 141 ; stud- 
ies of, 43-45, 51 ; see also con- 
ditioned reflexes. 

Methods, Aussage, 44 ; autobiog- 
raphy, 38-39 ; behavior, see ex- 
perimental ; dynamogenic, 37, 
38 ; experimental, 34, 35, 36, 
37-38, 42, 49-52, 197 ; exten- 
sive, 19; first, 33; multiple 
choice, 57 ; objective, 91, 198 ; 
physiological, 23, 25, 42-43, 
196 ; psycho-analysis, 39 ; quad- 
ruple choice, 56 ; quantitative, 
40-41 ; questionnaire, 39-40 ; 
retrospection, 45, 

Meumann, 36, 47. 



INDEX 



239 



Motive in child study, evolution, 
49 ; pedagogy, 48 ; see also at- 
titude. 

Motor development, 43, 198. 

Motor reflex, 66, 81 ; response, 37, 
73. 

Neuro-psychopaths, 79-80, 81, 82, 

83, 85, 136. 
Number of cases, 188. 

Objective methods, 91, 198. 
Organism, 5, 54, 91 ; child an, 
70-71, 199. 

Partil, 103, 127-134, 135, 136. 

Pasha, 118. 

Pavlov, 60, 62-65, 69, 199. 

Pedagogical Seminary, 29. 

Perez, 21, 28, 34. 

Pestalozzi, 15, 16, 34. 

Play, 99, 103, 195. 

Pohlmann, 46-47. 

Point Scale, 110, 128, 142, 161- 
168, 169, 179, 201, 203, 205. 

Pre-school age, 6, 32, 48, 206. 

Preyer, 22, 28, 34, 43, 192. 

"Psychic excitation," 64. 

Psychology, and biology, 53 ; 
child, 5, 33, 50; defined as be- 
havior, 54ff ; divisions of, 5 ; 
educational, 5-6 ; of adoles- 
cence, 6 ; of child, defined, 6. 

Psychomotor findings, 174-180, 
201-204. 

Psychomotor measurements, 112, 
143. 

Punishment motivation, 67. 

Quantitative studies, 40. 

Reassociation, 102 ; see also re- 
learning. 

Reflex as a unit, 54-55. 

Reflex, cerebral, 60-62, 89. 

Reflex, motor, 66, 81. 

Reflexes : see conditioned re- 
flexes. 

Eelearning, 101, 102, 141, 160- 
161, 202-203, 205, 214-216, 217. 



Results, genetic, 42. 

Retention, 102, 128, 140-141, 152- 
154, 202. 210-211 ; in defec- 
tives, 113-127. 

Reward motivation, 60, 67. 

Rousseau, 14-15. 

Schleiermacher, 17, 196. 
School entrance studies, 20. 
Seguin form board. 111, 142, 168- 

171, 179, 201, 204. 
Setchenov, 60-62. 
Sex differences, 47, 151-152, 154- 

159, 162, 177, 188-189, 203- 

204, 205. 
Shinn, 28, 34, 43. 192. 
Sikorskii, 26. 
Stern. 23, 34-36, 44, 192. 
Stimulus, 57, 60, 64, 70, 71, 76flE, 

79, 89, 96 ; appeal of, 58, 194 ; 

modification of, 114. 
Successful work, 185. 
Sully, 26. 
Synthetic study, 190, 206. 

Tests of intelligence, 30, 41, 86. 
Tests, supplementary, 108, 110- 

112. 
Tiedemann, 16, 42. 
Time interval, 87-88, 97-98, 99. 

Unlearning, 77£E, 85, 90, 100, 102, 
133, 141, 154-159, 166-167, 172, 
178, 202, 203-204, 205, 211- 
214, 215, 216, 217, 218. 

Unselected group, 48, 95, 103ff, 
137, 201-204. 

Vital index, 178-180 ; see psy- 
chomotor measurements. 

Warner, 26-27, 72. 
Watson, 54-56, 66-68, 199. 
Weight ; see anthropometric meas- 
urements. 

Yerkes, 56, 57-58, 60, 161-168, 
201. 



